Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female

Abstract

The Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F) is a comprehensive, 13-item, clinician-administered instrument designed to quantitatively assess the severity of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) in adult women. Developed through a collaboration between academic researchers and pharmaceutical professionals, the SIDI-F focuses on key aspects of sexual desire and interest over a 30-day recall period.

In addition to the 13 core items used for scoring, the SIDI-F incorporates a 5-item diagnostic module. These supplementary items gather information on common interfering conditions, such as fatigue, depression, and pain, but they are excluded from the calculation of the total severity score. The scale was rigorously validated across multicenter studies in North America and Europe, establishing strong psychometric properties for clinical use in assessing HSDD.

Keywords

HSDD, Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD), Sexual Desire, Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD), Clinical Assessment, Psychometrics, Clinician-administered instrument, Sexual Interest.

Authors

Anita H. Clayton, David Goldmeier, Rossella E. Nappi, Glen Wunderlich, Diane J. Lewis-D’Agostino, Robert Pyke

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F) is to provide a standardized, objective measure for clinicians to assess the quantifiable severity of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) in adult women. The instrument is intended to establish a baseline measure of severity and subsequently track changes in symptoms over time, particularly in response to treatment.

While the SIDI-F was validated for use by clinicians highly trained in FSD to evaluate patients against normative samples, its relative ease of use and low requirement for interpretive judgment make it practical for all experienced clinicians to monitor symptom progress during therapeutic interventions, regardless of the patient’s age, menopausal status, or geographic location.

Construct

The SIDI-F is designed to measure the psychological construct of sexual interest and desire severity, specifically within the context of HSDD. The scale captures the complex nature of sexual desire by rating both the intensity and frequency of various sexual parameters.

The 13 items cover distinct, related sub-constructs, including relationship quality related to sex, receptivity to sexual activity, initiation behavior, frequency of desire, affection, satisfaction derived from desire, distress resulting from lack of desire, positive sexual thoughts, response to erotica, frequency and ease of arousal, continuation of arousal, and orgasm experience. By integrating these dimensions, the SIDI-F provides a comprehensive, clinician-rated profile of a woman’s sexual interest deficits over the preceding month.

Validity

The validity of the SIDI-F was robustly established across two large, multicenter, nontreatment studies conducted in North America and Europe.

• Discriminant Validity: Discriminant validity was confirmed through two-way analysis of covariance. The SIDI-F score was significantly lower for women diagnosed with HSDD compared to those diagnosed with Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD) or those with no FSD (p < .001). This distinction was maintained across different age categories (women aged 50 years or under and those over 50 years) and regardless of menopausal status, demonstrating the instrument’s specific ability to identify HSDD severity.

• Convergent Validity: Convergent validity was assessed using Pearson’s correlation by comparing SIDI-F scores to established scales: the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and the Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire—Female (CSFQ-F). The SIDI-F scores were highly correlated (all correlations > .60) with the total scores of both the FSFI and CSFQ-F in women with HSDD, confirming that it measures a construct highly related to general female sexual function.

• Divergent Validity: Divergent validity was demonstrated by comparing SIDI-F scores with the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale (MAS). The resulting correlations were low (.02 and .23 across the two major studies), confirming that the SIDI-F assesses sexual desire severity independently of global marital satisfaction.

• Sensitivity to Change: The SIDI-F proved sensitive to both spontaneous and therapeutically induced changes. Retrospectively, percentage change in SIDI-F scores correlated significantly with changes in FSFI total and desire domain scores (p < .0001). Furthermore, in clinical trials, SIDI-F scores showed significant correlation with the Clinical Global Impression of Improvement score (p < .0001), underscoring its utility as an outcome measure for HSDD treatment.

Reliability

The SIDI-F exhibits excellent internal consistency and high test-retest reliability, affirming its stability and precision as a measurement tool.

• Internal Consistency: Internal consistency, measured using Cronbach’s alpha, was exceptionally high across both validation studies. In the North American study (N=223), the alpha value was .94 on both Day 0 and Day 28. In the European study (N=254), the corresponding values were .93 and .92, respectively, indicating homogeneity among the items.

• Test-Retest Reliability: Test-retest reliability over a 28-day period was assessed using Pearson correlation and the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). The Pearson correlation and ICC coefficients were .86 and .85, respectively, in the North American cohort. The ICC coefficient was .90 in the European cohort. These strong correlations confirm that the SIDI-F yields stable results over time when administered to subjects whose condition has not changed.

Factor Analysis

The original development of the SIDI-F involved rigorous item modification following preliminary testing and item response analysis (Sills et al., 2005). This process resulted in the scale being reduced from 17 items to its final 13-item structure. While explicit factor rotation details are not provided in the summary, the item response analysis served to ensure that the final scale items effectively and efficiently measured the intended construct of HSDD severity.

Instrument

Test Type: Clinician-administered instrument; Quantitative severity scale.

Format: 13 core items used for scoring, plus a 5-item diagnostic module for informational purposes. The clinician reads questions verbatim and uses supplementary probes to determine the score. Recall period is 30 days.

Language Available: Validated in North American and European settings (English and other major European languages are implied by the study locations).

Population Group: Adult Women.

Age Group: Adult women, validated across all ages and menopausal statuses.

Population Details: The scale was developed and validated on populations including women diagnosed with HSDD, Female Orgasmic Disorder (FOD), Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD), and women with no FSD.

Test Methodology: Items are rated on severity scales ranging from 0 up to 3, 4, or 5, depending on the specific item. Eight items are rated solely on symptom intensity, while five items are dual-rated using a grid structure combining symptom intensity and frequency. The total score ranges from 0 to 51. A higher score indicates greater sexual interest. A total score of 33 or less is the established clinical threshold indicating the presence of HSDD. Administration time is approximately 15 minutes.

Keywords

Sexual desire inventory, HSDD severity, Clinician rating, Sexual function assessment, Female sexuality, Psychometrics, Test-retest reliability, FSFI, Cronbach’s alpha, Sexual health.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Correspondence may be addressed to Dr. Robert Pyke ([email protected]) or Dr. Anita Clayton ([email protected]).

Correspondence Address: Anita Clayton, University of Virginia Health System, Department of Psychiatric Medicine, 2955 Ivy Road, Northridge Suite 210, Charlottesville, VA 22903.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The SIDI-F was copyrighted in 2004 by Anita Clayton, Sandra Leiblum, Kenneth R. Evans, Terrence Sills, Robert Pyke, Rosemary Basson, and R. Taylor Segraves. The use of this instrument by the scientific community is free of charge, provided the copyright notice is reproduced and the instrument is not modified without the express written consent of the copyright holders.

Inquiries for consent regarding alteration or modification should be directed to Dr. Robert Pyke at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 900 Ridgebury Rd, Ridgefield, CT 06877.

The complete 17-page measure is available online at the companion website for the handbook: http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415801751.

Reference’s

• Clayton, A. H., McGarvey, E. L., & Clavet, G. J. (1997). The Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire (CSFQ): Development, reliability, and validity. Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 33, 731–745.

• Clayton, A. H., Segraves, R. T., Leiblum, S., Basson, R., Pyke, R., Cotton, D., et al. (2006). Reliability and validity of the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F), a scale designed to measure severity of female Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 32, 115–135.

• Lewis-D’Agostino, D., Clayton, A. H., Wunderlich, G., Kimura, T., Derogatis, L., & Goldstein, A. (2007). Validating the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F) in North American women. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 109, 23S.

• Locke, H. J., & Wallace, K. M. (1959). Short marital-adjustment and prediction tests: Their reliability and validity. Marriage and Family Living, 21, 251–255.

• Meston, C. M. (2003). Validation of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) in women with Female Orgasmic Disorder and in women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 29, 39–46.

• Nappi, R., van Lunsen, R., Tignol, J., Goldmeier, D., Pyke, R., & Staehle, H. (2008). Validation of the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F) in European women. Sexologies, 17

• Rosen, R., Brown, C., Heiman, J., Leiblum, S., Meston, C., Shabsigh, R., et al. (2000). The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI): A multidimensional self-report instrument for the assessment of female sexual function. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, 26, 191–208.

• Sills, T., Wunderlich, G., Pyke, R., Segraves, R. T., Leiblum, S., Clayton, A., et al. (2005). The Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female (SIDI-F): Item response analyses of data from women diagnosed with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2, 801–818.

Items of the Sexual Interest and Desire Inventory—Female

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

• relationship—sexual

• receptivity

• initiation

• desire—frequency

• affection

• desire—satisfaction

• desire—distress

• thoughts—positive

• erotica

• arousal—frequency

• arousal ease

• arousal continuation

• orgasm