PURPOSE: It was to test the validity and reliability of an online version of the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI). METHODS: An online version of the FSFI was compared to the pen and paper traditional version. Physiotherapy students in three cities were randomly allocated to two groups - G-pp/ol (n=126) and G-ol/pp (n=147). G-pp/ol women replied to th FSFI using the traditional pen and paper method, while G-ol/pp women answered an online version of the same questionnaire. Data were collected ageing after 15 days, when G-pp/ol women answered the online version while G-ol/pp women answered on paper. All data were transferred to SPSS software. Demographic differences between the test two groups were determined by Student's t-test or Fisher exact (95%CI; p>0.05). Association and correlation between the responses of G-pp/ol and G-ol/pp were assessed for each sample by the t-test and Pearson's coefficient. An identical strategy was used for intragroup comparisons. RESULTS: A total of 273 women participated in the study and 28 (10.2%) giving up the second collection. There were no demographic differences between groups. Fifteen of the 19 FSFI questions were associated and correlated between the two groups in both test and the retest. The intragroup analysis revealed that all FSFI questions and scores were associated and weakly correlated for the same group during both test and retest. CONCLUSION: The online version of the FSFI showed acceptable validity and reliability when compared to the paper version, and can justify the choice of this modality, especially in studies involving private questions.
Sexuality; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of results; Validity of tests
