International Spinal Cord Injury Male Sexual Function Basic Data Set

Objective: To create the International Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Male Sexual Function Basic Data Set within the International SCI Data Sets. Setting: An international working group. Methods: The draft of the data set was developed by an international working group consisting of members appointed by the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS), the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) and a representative from the executive committee of the International SCI Standards and Data Sets. The data set was developed in an iterative process with review and comments by the members of the executive committee of the International SCI Standards and Data Sets, ISCoS scientific committee, ASIA Board and the ISCoS Council, as well as all the interested organizations and individuals. Next, the data set was posted for 2 months at the ISCoS and ASIA's websites for comments. ISCoS and ASIA approved the final version of the data set. To make the data set uniform, each variable and each response category within each variable have been specifically defined in a way that is designed to promote the collection and reporting of comparable minimal data. Results: Variables included in the International SCI Male Sexual Function Basic Data Set are as follows: date of data collection, interest in discussing sexual issues, sexual issues unrelated to spinal cord lesion, sexual dysfunction related to spinal cord lesion, psychogenic erection, reflex erection, ejaculation and orgasmic function. Complete instructions for data collection, data sheet and training cases are available at the website of ISCoS (http://www.iscos.org.uk) and ASIA (http://www.asia-spinalinjury.org). Spinal Cord (2011) 49, 795-798; doi: 10.1038/sc.2010.192; published online 1 February 2011