Creating and Validating the DESEA Questionnaire for Men and Women

Abstract

In clinical practice, it is essential to be able to identify hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), with its different severity levels and assess the influence the subject’s relationship has on the issue. In order to do this, questionnaires are needed that comprise appropriate psychometric properties. We analyzed the psychometric properties and factorial structure of the Sexual Desire and Aversion (DESEA) questionnaire that evaluates sexual desire and interpersonal stress (relationship problems) in male and female couples. A pilot study was conducted with a group of 1583 people. Finally, it included 20,424 Spanish speakers who answered the questionnaire via an online link. The requirements for factor analysis were verified followed by the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient calculated the reliability of the test scores at 0.834 in the pilot group and 0.889 in the final group. A 3-factor factorial design explains the 62.08% variance. The KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) test (p = 0.904), Bartlett’s test of sphericity (126,115.3; p = 0.000010) and the matrix determinant (0.0020770) verified the appropriateness of the factor analysis. The results show that the DESEA questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating desire and interpersonal stress, both in women and men, in clinical and research contexts.