Room 517-D | Premature Ejaculation: Towards a Consensus on Definition, Etiology and Treatment- Part I I Thursday, July 14, 2005 Time: 2:30 PM-4:30 PM |
Index of Premature Ejaculation: A new questionnaire to assess changes in control over ejaculation and satisfaction with sex life.
Althof, Stanley*,1, Rosen, Ray2, Rajiv, Mundayat3, May, Kathryn 3, Symonds, Tara, 1 Case Western Rserve University School of Medicine, West Palm Beech, Florida, USA2 Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ, USA3 Pfizer Ltd, Sandwich, Kent, USA
ABSTRACT- Introduction and Objectives: No validated questionnaires to assess the subjective aspects of premature ejaculation (PE) are currently in use. Clinical trials have generally only considered time, measured by ejaculatory latency, as an indicator of efficacy, but ejaculatory control, sexual satisfaction, and distress are important aspects of PE, which impact on the patient and his partner. The objective of this study was therefore to develop and validate a new questionnaire to measure the overall experience of premature ejaculation. Method: Test items were initially developed through discussion with two sex therapists (SA and RR) and through in-depth interviews with men with PE. The psychometric analyses were conducted on a sample of PE sufferers (n=926) who ejaculated ⩽ <2 minutes in 70% of attempts at sexual intercourse and non-PE men (n=154) who self-reported latencies ′about average′ or ′a little longer than average′. Results: Factor analysis revealed a three-factor solution: Sexual satisfaction, Control and Distress. Reliability was good and convergent validity was as predicted when correlated with the Sexual Quality of Life Assessment tool. Discriminant validity was excellent with non-PE subjects scoring significantly higher than PE sufferers on all domains. Discussion: The Index of Premature Ejaculation (IPE) is a reliable and valid questionnaire for the assessment of control over ejaculation, satisfaction with sex life, and distress in men with PE. This tool has the potential to add value to interpretations of improvements in ejaculation latency resulting from new treatments of PE. Further research will need to investigate the IPEs sensitivity to change and define a ′minimum important difference′ for each domain.
Key words: premature ejaculation, assessment, questionnaire