The questionnaire of integrated assessment of male sexuality is a tool for analyzing a man's sexual functions throughout his life

Introduction. Sexual dysfunction is extremely common in the world. The frequency of erectile dysfunction can approach 50%, while ejaculation disorders more than 30%. The patient’s sexual well-being is an integral part of general health and can correlate with the risk of developing diseases of organs and systems. Currently, the most common assessment of individual aspects of sexuality at the time of the inspection by clinical interview is, however, the issue of determining all the components of the sexual function throughout the life of the patient is acutely. To solve this problem, M.I. Kogan was developed and published in 2009 an Integral assessment of male sexuality (IAMS).

Aim. To determine the validity and reliability of the questionnaire of sexual functioning of men.

Materials and methods. The study consists of 209 men. Of these, 43 healthy people aged 31.0 [26; 36] years; 57 people aged 63.0 years [59.0; 67.0] with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH); and 109 people aged 64.0 years [61.0; 68.0] with verified prostate cancer (PCa).

Age in healthy men ranged from 18 to 52 years, while men with BPH it was 49–71 and in those with PCa 47-70 years. In the whole cohort, 78.0% were married, 13.9% were divorced, but had sexual relations out of marriage, and 8.1% were lonely. 136 men (65.0%) had children. All men filled in IAMS.

Results. The Alpha Kronbach coefficient exceeded 0.6 for all three versions of the questionnaire and groups of men, while for all examined, as well as patients, exceeded 0.9. The highest values were obtained for a group of patients, as well as for all examined, which confirms the reliability of the questionnaire. Lower values for healthy persons can be explained by a small number. All correlation coefficients were positive and significant at a high level (p<0.001), which indicates that the increase in the sum of points for each component means an increase in the level of male sexuality and confirms the validity of the questionnaire. The level of sexuality of patients was much lower compared to healthy men (p<0.001). Among healthy people, the majority had a normal level of sexuality (62.8%), while 23.3% were hyposexual and 14% were hypersexual. In the group of patients, hyposexuality was prevalent (74.1%), while normal sexuality was seen only in 18.7%, and hypersexuality in 7.2%. Thus, the results of all calculations confirm the validity and reliability of this questionnaire. IAMS not only gives an integral assessment of a man’s sexuality at the time of contacting a urologist, but also quantitatively determines the type of sexuality, which is a reflection of the innate qualities of the male body throughout his sexual life.

Conclusions. IAMS is valid and reproducible questionnaire for an integral assessment of male sexuality, which is possible to use in epidemiological and clinical studies in the future.