ABSTRACT
Background: delivery of sexual health services rely on rigorous facts extracted from surveys, but often those facts cannot be available due to the lack of culturallysensitive questionnaires
Objective: our aim was to show the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the Acquisition of Sexual Information Test [ASIT], a measure selected due to its assemblages with Iranian culture
Materials and Methods: forward-backward procedure was applied to translate the questionnaire. Cross-sectional study was carried out and psychometric properties of the Iranian version were tested in a thirty sample of reproductive-age women. Face validity was assessed by qualitative and quantitative methods. Content validity was also assessed by calculating two quantitative indicators as content validity index [CVI] and content validity ratio [CVR]. Reliability was assessed by test-retest analyses
Results: impact score was 1.5, the majority of participants [83.3%] stated that the overall level of questionnaire was high but some of the questions were irrelevant to sexual knowledge. Many questions [90%] gained a CVR less than 0.56, and all of them gained CVIs lower than 0.7. Correlation in test-retest reliability was 0.85
Conclusion: sexual knowledge questionnaire seems to be culturally inappropriate for Iranian women. Although, we need survey data for assessing the evidence-based needs for sexual health and best practice, but the questions addressing various dimensions of sexuality must be culturally sensitive, comprehensive and appropriate. Our findings suggest that ASIT as a well-known measure should be used in Iranian population with caution