Establishing dimensionality of sexual behaviours in patients with regional brain dysfunction.

The sample size was small enough that many items had too few responses, so the five-point frequency answers were collapsed into yes/no answers, which reduced information. Ten items were excluded because caregivers often did not answer them, and eight items were not endorsed by any caregiver. The TBI group was made up entirely of male Vietnam veterans, so the findings do not show how the scale works in women or younger patients with TBI. Many informants did not know the veterans before injury, so the analysis used only current symptoms and did not use premorbid base rates. The caregivers were mostly heterosexual spouses or partners, so the scale was not tested with same-sex couples or other caregiver relationships. The study did not compare the scale with a normal population or test item bias, so it cannot show that the domains work equally well across groups. The Detachment domain did not meet the reliability standard, so it should not be interpreted as a stable scale component.

The authors report no potential conflicts of interest.

Do not treat the SNIQ as an established clinical tool for therapists. It tested how caregiver ratings grouped into domains, not whether the scale improves care, and the detachment domain did not meet the reliability standard.