Evidências de validade do male sexual function index em homens de diferentes orientações sexuais

Abstract

Studies on factors involving male sexuality, such as sexual response (desire, arousal, erection, ejaculation, orgasm and satisfaction) and receptive anal sex usually have a clinical and pathological bias, especially in homosexual men. With the objective of investigating the male sexual response, we sought to find an instrument applicable to men with different sexual orientations that could be applied in a non-clinical population. From this general objective, the present dissertation is composed by two studies referring to the unfolding and difficulties to find a more comprehensive instrument possible. In study 1 a review of the literature was carried out in order to identify the instruments used to evaluate the sexual response of men from different orientations and from non clinical samples. As a main result, we found that only one instrument was broad enough to cover several aspects of the sexual response domains, the Male Sexual Function Index (MSFI), an instrument equivalent to that used to measure the female sexual response, which has already been validated in Brazil. From this, in study 2, we proposed to translate, adapt and verify the evidence of validity of the MSFI for Brazilian Portuguese, since it is a validated instrument in English and that measures five domains of sexual function (sexual desire, arousal, orgasm, erection and sexual/emotional satisfaction). In this study, the sample consisted of 206 heterosexual, 78 bisexual and 165 homosexual men, with sexual performances ranging from exclusively insertive to exclusively receptive, and the age was 18 to 65 years old. The results found indicated satisfactory internal consistency and correlations between the MSFI factors occurred according to the original version of the instrument. Regarding the external validity, the correlations occurred in the expected direction according to the literature. Although the adjustment index for the ejaculation factor was not satisfactory, the Male Sexual Function Index translated into the Portuguese language presented satisfactory evidence of validity. Therefore, it can be an important instrument to measure the sexual function of the male population of different sexual orientations.