DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMEN IN SHORT- AND LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIPS IN CUES FOR SEXUAL DESIRE Ana Carvalheira, PhD 1, Lori Brotto, Ph.D 2 & Isabel Leal, PhD 1 1 Institute of Applied Psychology, Lisbon, Portugal 2 Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of British Columbia, Canada Sexual desire is thought to decline in women as the duration of partnership increases [1]. Because the diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) according to the DSM-IV-TR requires the clinician to take into account “factors that affect sexual functioning, such as age and the context of a person’s life” [2], the extent to which relationship duration is associated with, and accounts for, sexual desire problems has important implications for the diagnosis of HSDD. Moreover, there is evidence that cues play a fundamental role in triggering desire [3], but the extent to which this is affected by relationship duration is unknown. OBJECTIVES: To demonstrate the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of Cues for Sexual Desire Scale (CSDS, McCall & Meston, 2006) [3]. To analyze differences in cues resulting in sexual desire between women in short-term and long-term relationships in a community sample of sexually functional women. PARTICIPANTS: N = 3687 Portuguese women; Mean age=29.41 (17-75); 70.4% Univ. degree; 89.2% heterosexual; 77.2% in a committed relationship; 3.4% pregnant; 1.5% less than 6 months postpartum; 9.8% were taking antidepressants. INSTRUMENT: Cues for Sexual Desire Scale (McCall & Meston, 2006) [3] translated into Portuguese. PROCEDURE: Web-survey; passive advertisement & snowball by . The factorial validity of the CUES scale was evaluated by means of a Confirmatory Factor Analysis performed with AMOS17 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL). The evaluation of the closeness of fit for the 4 factor model was judged from the X2/df, CFI, GFI e RMSEA e P(rmsea≤0.05) indices accordingly to Schumacker and Lomax [4]. Corresponding Author: This study was funded by a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for the Science and Technology for the first author (Grant SFRH/BPD/31215/2006 The factorial validity of the four factor model of the CUES scale was evaluated with a confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 3687 Portuguese women. The values of the fit statistics revealed that the proposed 4-factor model did not have a close fit to covariance structure of 40 items of the scale (X2/df=24.5; CFI=.793; GFI=.754; RMSEA=.08; P[rmsea≤.05]<.001). Considering the poor fit of the 4 factor model we proceeded with an Exploratory Factor Analysis to elucidate a factor structure for the 40 items in the present study sample. INTRODUCTION 1Klusmann D. Sexual motivation and the duration of partnership. Arch Sex Behav 2002; 31: American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. 4th edition, Text revision. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; McCall K, Meston C. Cues Resulting in Desire for Sexual Activity in Women. J Sex Med 2006;3:838–852. 4Schumacker RE, Lomax RG. A beginner's guide to structural equation modeling (2nd ed.). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates The Portuguese version of CSDS demonstrated adequate psychometric properties with five factors. Women in long-term relationships (more than 5 years) reported fewer cues that trigger sexual desire compared to women in short-term relationships. This has clinical implications and suggests that encouraging women to consider newer and varied cues that might enhance desire might target low desire concerns. Relationship duration should be considered in the diagnostic assessment of HSDD. Specifically, given relationship-duration related differences in potential arousability, the diagnosis of HSDD should take into account normative declines in sexual desire. METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION REFERENCES Confirmatory factor analysis Exploratory factor analysis We completed an exploratory factor analysis based on principal components extraction followed by varimax rotation, which revealed 6 main factors with eigenvalues over 1.00 (N=3687 women). Upon inspection of screen plot, we extracted 5 factors that explained 58.3% of the total variance. A sixth factor included 2 items from the original Visual/Proximity subscale. These 2 items were eliminated because this factor (with eigenvalue of 1.035) only explained 2.6% of the total variance. All factor loadings were limited to values >0.40. Cronbach’s coefficient α for this 5-factor solution was.913. Items Variance explained (%) Reliability (Cronbach α) Eigenvalue CSDS Factor 1: Visual/Proximity (8 items) 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, CSDS Factor 2: Emotional Bonding (10 items) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, CSDS Factor 3: Romantic/Implicit (10 items) 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, CSDS Factor 4: Arousal/internal (5 items) 16, 17, 18, 19, CSDS Factor 5: Arousal/external (5 items) 11, 12, 13, 14, Subsample studied: committed women who reported easily becoming sexually aroused, not taking anti-depressants, not being pregnant or breastfeeding, not less than 6 months postpartum (n = 1881) SHORT-TERM relationships ≤ 3 years n = 1050 mean (SD) LONGER-TERM relationships > 5 years n = 831 mean (SD) pt CSDS Factor 1: Visual/Proximity Cues14.2 (6.2)13.8 (5.8) CSDS Factor 2: Emotional Bonding Cues40.4 (6.9)39.4 (7.0).003*2.98 CSDS Factor 3: Romantic/Implicit Cues34.1 (7.6)32.3 (7.8).000*4.9 CSDS Factor 4: Arousal/internal Cues20.0 (3.9)19.5 (3.8) CSDS Factor 5: Arousal/external Cues14.4 (5.0)14.5 (5.1) CSDS total score128.0 (20.2)124.5 (20.1) CSDS and relationship duration in women who report no arousal difficulties Table 1. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation, variance explained, reliability coefficients, and eigenvalues Table 2. CSDS in short- and long-term relationships