Attitudes Toward Masturbation in Adolescents: Psychometric Properties of Spanish Version of Attitudes Toward Masturbation Inventory

Masturbation is a sexual behavior associated with sexuality guilt. In the absence of instruments to assess attitudes toward this behavior, this study aims to examine some psychometric properties of the Spanish version of Negative Attitudes Toward Masturbation Inventory (NAMI) from Abramson and Mosher, which was applied in conjuction whith the Sexual Opinion Survey to a sample of 610 Salvadorean adolescents (308 men and 302 women). The exploratory factorial analysis isolated three factors: Personally experienced negative affects associated with masturbation (alpha = 0,85), Negative attitudes toward positive aspects of masturbation (alpha = 0,76) and False beliefs about the harmful nature of masturbation (alpha = 0,61). There were no sex differences in the total score of the scale or two of the three subscales, but in some of the items in which women had a more negative attitude toward masturbation. The erotophilia was inversely associated with negative attitudes toward masturbation.