Quality of Sexual Life Questionnaire (QVS): a reliable, sensitive and reproducible instrument to assess quality of life in subjects with erectile dysfunction

A French quality of life questionnaire specific to erectile dysfunction (ED), 'QVS' for 'Questionnaire de Vie Sexuelle', has been developed. This paper describes its validation: item reduction and reliability ( internal consistency and reproducibility), construct validity and criterion validity ( clinical, discriminant and concurrent). The initial 40-item questionnaire was administered once to 316 ED and 117 control subjects, and twice (D0 and D7) to 104 ED and 29 control subjects. Item reduction gave a 27-item questionnaire with three scales ( Sexual Life, Skills and Psychosocial Wellbeing) and four scores ( one score for each scale and a Global Index). Psychometric analyses demonstrated the reliability and the validity of the QVS. The questionnaire was able to discriminate patients according to the presence or severity of ED. The Skills scale was the least sensitive. Analysis of responsiveness to change over time still needs to be addressed to consider the questionnaire as a fully validated instrument.