Development and psychometric properties of a questionnaire to assess the female quality of sexual life

Abstract

Background & Aim: Proper assessment of the quality of sexual life requires having access to psychometrically sound instruments. The present study aimed to develop an instrument to assess Iranian women’s quality of sexual life.

 Methods & Materials: This was a mixed-method study with exploratory design; at first, the Iranian women’s perception of the quality of sexual life was explored. An initial 73-item version of the questionnaire was generated according to qualitative findings and the review of the literature. Then, psychometric characteristics consist of face, content, construct, convergent validity, and internal consistency were assessed. A total of 450 women completed the developed questionnaire, ENRICH scale, and sexual quality of the life-female questionnaire.

Results: The results of face validity were satisfactory. The content validity index and content validity ratio were found to be .92 and .80, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis identified six factors accounted for 51.92% of the variance. The identified six factors that were also confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis with acceptable goodness of fit indices. Correlations between the total scores and the dimensions of sexual quality of life-female questionnaire and ENRICH ranged from .414 to .747. Total and the range of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the explored subscales were 0.94 and 0.94 to 0.60 respectively.

Conclusion: This study provided a valid and reliable 36-items questionnaire to holistically assess Iranian women’s quality of sexual life. It will be useful as a self-reported measure in research and clinical practice of women’s sexual health.