Beliefs About Sexual Functioning Scale: Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of Psychometric Properties Within Turkish Population

Background and Purpose: Beliefs about sexual function play a very significant role in determining sexual dysfunctions. There are very few short and reliable scales that can be administered to both men and women to measure their beliefs about sexual function. In this study, the researchers aimed to define the cross-culturally adapted Turkish version of the Beliefs about Sexual Functioning Scale and to evaluate its psychometric properties. Methods: In this methodological study which included 192 people, data were collected through face-to-face interviews using the personal information form and the Beliefs about Sexual Functioning Scale. Results: The content validity index and Cronbach’s alpha value of the scale were .96 and .726, respectively. Findings indicate that the four-factor structure of the scale, whose items were reduced from 15 to 11, showed a good fit. According to the results of exploratory factor analysis, the scale preserved its original structure, but one subdimension (anal sex beliefs) was excluded from the scale because it was not suitable for the Turkish culture. The remaining four subdimensions accounted for 61.71% of the total variance. Conclusions: The Beliefs about Sexual Functioning Scale can be used to determine the beliefs about sexual functions of people living in Turkey.