A validation and reliability study of the Korean version of the male sexual health questionnaire

Purpose: We wanted to validate the Korean use of a linguistically alternative Korean version of the Male Sexual Health Questionnaire (MSHQ), and we wanted to compare it with the original English version. Materials and methods: Two bilinguists independently translated the original English version of the MSHQ into written Korean. A panel consisting of the aforementioned translators and two bilingual authors reviewed the translations to form a single reconciled forward translation of the Korean version of the MSHQ. Another translator, who had never seen the Korean version of MSHQ, back-translated this first draft into English. Test-retest methodology was used to assess the reliability, while Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the internal consistency. Results: The linguistic differences between the original English version and the translated Korean version were not significant. Three sexual function domains (ejaculation, erection and satisfaction) discriminated well between the men with and without benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH)/lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and sexual dysfunction. Three domains of sexual function were identified in the test-retest reliability study, each of which showed a high degree of internal consistency (alpha=0.95, 0.90 and 0.93, respectively) and test-retest reliability (r=0.89, 0.81 and 0.87, respectively). Conclusions: Translation and linguistic validation of the Korean version of the MSHQ was completed. Also, the test-retest reliability was acceptable. We have shown that the Korean version of the MSHQ is suitable, reliable, valid and sensitive to clinical changes in the Korean population.