Factors Affecting women's sexual arousal: a focus group study in Italy

the present research aim to otuline the components of woman's sexual desire, especially the psychological, emotional and adaptive factors influencing the sezual response in women, in order to create a suitable Italian version of the Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for women (SESII-W). 15 Focus groups involving 114 women (M age= 30 years; range 18-76), were conducted by forut trained female moderators (2 leaders and 2 assistants), and the content of the discussions was analyzed for major themes by two independent coders. Participants described sexual arousal htrough physical emotional and psychological and behavioural factors. The relationship between sexual desire and sexual arousal is complex, according to some women the sexual desire precedes the arousal, but for others there is no difference between sexual diesire and arousal. According to the findings there are a large selection of factors that enhance and inhibit sexual arousal, some of them are connected to the self, or related to the partnere, and associated to the situation. These results as well as improving the unterstanding desire, maybe helpful in the development of questionnaire to assess women sexuality, especially in clinical assessment.