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Journal of Affective Disorders Jul 2019Alexithymia reflects a difficulty with identifying and expressing emotions. This experience has been proposed as having an association with suicide ideation and... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis
BACKGROUND
Alexithymia reflects a difficulty with identifying and expressing emotions. This experience has been proposed as having an association with suicide ideation and behaviour. This review aimed to synthesise the evidence to establish the bivariate and multivariate relationships between alexithymia, and its subcomponents, with suicide ideation and behaviour.
METHODS
Search terms related to alexithymia and suicide ideation and behaviour were searched across nine prominent databases in May 2018. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported original empirical quantitative findings from adult samples, used a validated measure of alexithymia, and any measure of suicide ideation or behaviour.
RESULTS
Thirty-four studies were eligible for inclusion in this review. The review found a large effect size for the relationship between alexithymia and suicide ideation (r = 0.54, 95% CI= 0.40-0.65) and a small effect size for the relationship between alexithymia and suicide behaviour (r = 0.25, 95% CI = 0.16-0.34).
LIMITATIONS
A high level of heterogeneity was found in the meta-analysis meaning that results should be interpreted with caution.
CONCLUSION
A positive association was found between alexithymia and suicide ideation and, to a lesser extent, behaviour across a range of clinical and general population samples. This review has potentially important clinical implications, and promotes the need for suicide prevention to focus on emotion regulation skills.
Topics: Adult; Affective Symptoms; Female; Humans; Male; Suicidal Ideation
PubMed: 31103905
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.05.013 -
Neurosciences (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) Oct 2022To assess the prevalence of alexithymia and its associated factors among medical students at King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
OBJECTIVES
To assess the prevalence of alexithymia and its associated factors among medical students at King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
METHODS
A cross-sectional study was conducted at KSU, including 420 medical students from all years of medical college (i.e., first to the fifth year), by using an electronic questionnaire distributed during August 2021. The questionnaire consisted of sociodemographic-related questions and the 20-item Toronto alexithymia scale (a validated scale in the literature).
RESULTS
The prevalence of alexithymia among the participants was found to be 26.9%. A statistically significant association between alexithymia and gender (=0.013) was found. A diagnosis with any psychiatric condition (=0.026), history of abuse during childhood (=0.006), and lack of physical activity were associated with alexithymia.
CONCLUSION
The prevalence of alexithymia among medical students at KSU was significantly higher than general population in literatures. It was indicated in the results that being female, having a psychiatric condition or history of childhood abuse, and lack of physical activity were all associated with alexithymia. We recommend increasing awareness of and screening for alexithymia and its associated factors among medical students.
Topics: Affective Symptoms; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Male; Prevalence; Saudi Arabia; Students, Medical
PubMed: 36252975
DOI: 10.17712/nsj.2022.4.20220049 -
Psychopathology 2021Despite being a longstanding and well-established concept, alexithymia is unfamiliar for many clinicians. This article aimed to address the alexithymia concept from a... (Review)
Review
Despite being a longstanding and well-established concept, alexithymia is unfamiliar for many clinicians. This article aimed to address the alexithymia concept from a clinical perspective based on a review of the research on alexithymia intervention. Several strategies are proposed to help clinicians better work with alexithymic clients in psychotherapy. Alexithymia assessment, its impact on the therapeutic alliance, and the difficulties in emotional tasks are highlighted points. Considering alexithymia will inform clinicians' current diagnosis and conceptualization and provide specific targets and venues for intervention, increasing the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
Topics: Affective Symptoms; Emotions; Humans; Psychotherapy; Therapeutic Alliance
PubMed: 34749373
DOI: 10.1159/000519786 -
BioMed Research International 2014The aim of this preliminary study was to determine whether psychiatric disorders, psychopathological symptoms, and alexithymia are associated with endometriosis in an...
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this preliminary study was to determine whether psychiatric disorders, psychopathological symptoms, and alexithymia are associated with endometriosis in an Italian population.
STUDY DESIGN
A preliminary study comprising 37 Italian patients with surgically confirmed endometriosis and 43 controls, without clinical and ultrasound signs of endometriosis, was carried out. Both patients and controls were evaluated for the presence/absence of psychiatric disorders, psychopathological symptoms, alexithymia, and pain symptoms (nonmenstrual pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia).
RESULTS
Statistically significant differences were found between cases and controls for prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, malfunctioning on obsessive-compulsive subscale (P < 0.01) and depression subscale (P < 0.05) of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revisited (SCL-90-R), and higher alexithymia levels (P < 0.01). Patients with endometriosis-associated pain showed greater prevalence of psychiatric disorders compared to pain-free patients but that difference was not significant. Significant correlation was found between malfunctioning in some SCL-90-R dimensions and pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia scores at the visual analog score (VAS).
CONCLUSION
Some psychopathological aspects, such as psychoemotional distress and alexithymia, are more frequent in women with endometriosis and might amplify pain symptoms in these patients.
Topics: Adult; Affective Symptoms; Anxiety Disorders; Endometriosis; Female; Humans; Laparoscopy; Middle Aged; Mood Disorders; Pelvic Pain
PubMed: 25045701
DOI: 10.1155/2014/786830 -
Zeitschrift Fur Kinder- Und... Jan 2018
Topics: Adolescent; Affective Symptoms; Child; Comorbidity; Emotional Adjustment; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Disorders; Mood Disorders
PubMed: 29303465
DOI: 10.1024/1422-4917/a000564 -
Journal of Experimental Psychology.... Nov 2016Alexithymia is a subclinical condition traditionally characterized by difficulties identifying and describing one's own emotions. Recent formulations of alexithymia,...
Alexithymia is a subclinical condition traditionally characterized by difficulties identifying and describing one's own emotions. Recent formulations of alexithymia, however, suggest that the condition may result from a generalized impairment in the perception of all bodily signals ("interoception"). Interoceptive accuracy has been associated with a variety of deficits in social cognition, but recently with an improved ability to inhibit the automatic tendency to imitate the actions of others. The current study tested the consequences for social cognition of the hypothesized association between alexithymia and impaired interoception by examining the relationship between alexithymia and the ability to inhibit imitation. If alexithymia is best characterized as a general interoceptive impairment, then one would predict that alexithymia would have the same relationship with the ability to control imitation as does interoceptive accuracy. Forty-three healthy adults completed measures of alexithymia, imitation-inhibition, and as a control, inhibition of nonimitative spatial compatibility. Results revealed the predicted relationship, such that increasing alexithymia was associated with an improved ability to inhibit imitation, and that this relationship was specific to imitation-inhibition. These results support the characterization of alexithymia as a general interoceptive impairment and shed light on the social ability of alexithymic individuals-with implications for the multitude of psychiatric, neurological, and neurodevelopmental disorders associated with high rates of alexithymia. (PsycINFO Database Record
Topics: Adult; Affective Symptoms; Female; Humans; Imitative Behavior; Inhibition, Psychological; Interoception; Male; Social Perception; Young Adult
PubMed: 27786535
DOI: 10.1037/xhp0000310 -
Scientific Reports Jul 2021The risk for developing stress-related disorders is elevated in individuals with high alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by impaired emotional awareness and...
The risk for developing stress-related disorders is elevated in individuals with high alexithymia, a personality trait characterized by impaired emotional awareness and interpersonal relating. However, it is still unclear how alexithymia alters perceived psychosocial stress and which neurobiological substrates are mechanistically involved. To address this question, we examined freshmen during transition to university, given that this period entails psychosocial stress and frequently initiates psychopathology. Specifically, we used a functional magnetic resonance imaging emotional face matching task to probe emotional processing in 54 participants (39 women) at the beginning of the first year at university and 6 months later. Furthermore, we assessed alexithymia and monitored perceived psychosocial stress and loneliness via questionnaires for six consecutive months. Perceived psychosocial stress significantly increased over time and initial alexithymia predicted subjective stress experiences via enhanced loneliness. On the neural level, alexithymia was associated with lowered amygdala responses to emotional faces, while loneliness correlated with diminished reactivity in the anterior insular and anterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, insula activity mediated the association between alexithymia and loneliness that predicted perceived psychosocial stress. Our findings are consistent with the notion that alexithymia exacerbates subjective stress via blunted insula reactivity and increased perception of social isolation.
Topics: Affective Symptoms; Amygdala; Cerebral Cortex; Face; Facial Recognition; Female; Gyrus Cinguli; Humans; Loneliness; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Social Interaction; Social Isolation; Stress, Psychological; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult
PubMed: 34321519
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-94799-w -
Computational Intelligence and... 2021Alexithymia, as a fundamental notion in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, is characterized by deficits in emotional processing and, consequently, difficulties in...
OBJECTIVE
Alexithymia, as a fundamental notion in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, is characterized by deficits in emotional processing and, consequently, difficulties in emotion recognition. Traditional tools for assessing alexithymia, which include interviews and self-report measures, have led to inconsistent results due to some limitations as insufficient insight. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to propose a new screening tool that utilizes machine learning models based on the scores of facial emotion recognition task.
METHOD
In a cross-sectional study, 55 students of the University of Tabriz were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and their scores in the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20). Then, they completed the somatization subscale of Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and the facial emotion recognition (FER) task. Afterwards, support vector machine (SVM) and feedforward neural network (FNN) classifiers were implemented using K-fold cross validation to predict alexithymia, and the model performance was assessed with the area under the curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and F1-measure.
RESULTS
The models yielded an accuracy range of 72.7-81.8% after feature selection and optimization. Our results suggested that ML models were able to accurately distinguish alexithymia and determine the most informative items for predicting alexithymia.
CONCLUSION
Our results show that machine learning models using FER task, SCL-90-R, BDI-II, and BAI could successfully diagnose alexithymia and also represent the most influential factors of predicting it and can be used as a clinical instrument to help clinicians in diagnosis process and earlier detection of the disorder.
Topics: Affective Symptoms; Cross-Sectional Studies; Facial Expression; Facial Recognition; Humans; Machine Learning
PubMed: 34621306
DOI: 10.1155/2021/2053795 -
Journal of the Neurological Sciences Mar 2023In a cohort of adults with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), we aim to: METHODS: 91 patients participating in a FND 5-week outpatient program completed baseline...
INTRODUCTION
In a cohort of adults with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), we aim to: METHODS: 91 patients participating in a FND 5-week outpatient program completed baseline self-report questionnaires for total phobia, somatic symptom severity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia. Patients were grouped by Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10) score of <6 or ≥ 6 and compared for significant differences in tested variables. This analysis was repeated with patients grouped by alexithymia status. Simple effects were tested using pairwise comparisons. Multistep regression models tested direct relationships between autistic traits and psychiatric comorbidity scores, and mediation by alexithymia.
RESULTS
36 patients (40%) were AQ-10 positive (scoring ≥6 on AQ-10). A further 36 patients (across AQ-10 positive and AQ-10 negative groups) (40%) screened positive for alexithymia. AQ-10 positive patients scored significantly higher for alexithymia, depression, generalised anxiety, social phobia, ADHD, and dyslexia. Alexithymia positive patients scored significantly higher for generalised anxiety, depression, somatic symptoms severity, social phobia, and dyslexia. Alexithymia score was found to mediate the relationship between autistic trait and depression scores.
CONCLUSION
We demonstrate a high proportion of autistic and alexithymic traits, in adults with FND. A higher prevalence of autistic traits may highlight a need for specialised communication approaches in FND management. Mechanistic conclusions are limited. Future research could explore links with interoceptive data.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Affective Symptoms; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autistic Disorder; Comorbidity; Conversion Disorder; Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Prevalence; Self Report; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 36807974
DOI: 10.1016/j.jns.2023.120585 -
BMC Psychology Feb 2024This article is a review that was inspired by recent studies investigating the effects of childhood trauma or early life stress (ELS) and mindfulness in adulthood. One... (Review)
Review
This article is a review that was inspired by recent studies investigating the effects of childhood trauma or early life stress (ELS) and mindfulness in adulthood. One recent study found that some forms of abuse and neglect led to higher scores in several subscales of a self-report measure of mindfulness. The authors concluded that some forms of ELS can help cultivate certain aspects of mindfulness in adulthood. However, and in contrast to this recent finding, much of the extant literature investigating ELS and trauma are linked to emotional dysregulation, alexithymia, and a host of psychopathologies in adulthood which makes the results of this study surprising. Central to the mindfulness literature is cultivating an open, non-reactive, or non-judgment awareness of inner experiences which are important for emotional regulation. In this paper, I review some of the effects of trauma or ELS on critical neural circuits linked to mindfulness, interoception, attachment, and alexithymia which I hope may clarify some of the conflicting findings from this study and throughout the literature and provide additional context and a framework that may inform research investigating these two constructs going forward.
Topics: Humans; Child; Adverse Childhood Experiences; Mindfulness; Affective Symptoms; Child Abuse; Emotional Regulation
PubMed: 38355582
DOI: 10.1186/s40359-024-01563-6