The Development of the Positive Sexuality in Adolescence Scale (PSAS)

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present investigation was to develop a comprehensive tool to measure positive sexuality among adolescents. We first conducted an extensive literature review to develop the Positive Sexuality in Adolescence Scale (PSAS). We also conducted focus group interviews with adolescents (N = 14) to explore their understanding of positive sexuality and to discuss the proposed scale items. In two survey studies (N_total = 890), we examined the psychometric properties of the PSAS. In Study 1 (N = 211; M_age = 15.5, 55.5% girls), an exploratory factor analysis yielded five factors (e.g., positive approach to sexual relationships) which comprised 22 items. Convergent validity was also established in Study 1. In Study 2 (N =679; M_age = 15.32, 49% girls), a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the factor structure. Results of Study 2 also supported the internal consistency and a partial measurement invariance for boys and girls. The PSAS is a useful tool for assessing the multifaceted nature of positive sexuality among adolescents for both boys and girls. We conclude by outlining future research directions on adolescent positivity sexuality using the PSAS.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Notes

¹ Datasets and results (together with results on test-retest reliability not included in the manuscript) are publicly available on OSF via

http://osf.io/usfhv/?view_only=0d8de5cac4e447858f7bf6674054c7fc

² Note that McDonald’s omegas were calculated using Mplus (version 8.3) given that version 27.0.0. of SPSS is not compatible with Hayes’ omega extension.

³ For more information regarding this project, please contact the first author. Data for this project were also collected, in June 2020 and October 2020.

⁴ As a form of sensitivity analysis, we compared the mean scores on the PSAS between respondents who only or first completed the sexuality items (N = 600) and respondents who first completed the body image items (N = 79). Independent t-tests showed no significant differences (p > .05) between these two groups regarding the scores on the five subscales.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds under grant number Special Research Fund C14/18/017.