Alexithymia as a predictor of Behavioral symptoms in a non-clinical sample

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Alexithymia has been linked to several mental health issues, including depression and schizophrenia. Affective deficits, such as difficulty in emotionalizing and fantasizing, and cognitive deficits including difficulty in recognition, describing, and distinguishing feelings from bodily sensations of emotional arousal, characterize the personality dimension known as alexithymia. Methods: The current study aimed to determine the range of alexithymia contribution to behavioral symptoms among adolescents and adults who did not attend psychiatric clinics and did not receive psychotherapy. Toronto alexithymia Scale TAS-20 was used to measure alexithymia. Items were formulated in the form of positive and negative statements. Results: Total of 165 Egyptian participants were recruited in the study. Alexithymia predicted physical symptoms with a positive contribution rate of 29% (p-value=0.0001), obsessive-compulsive (OC) with rate of 12% (p-value= 0.0002), interactive sensitivity with rate of 16% (p-value= 0.0001), depression with rate of 26% (p-value= 0.0001), anxiety with rate of 29% (p-value= 0.0001), hostility with rate of 23% (p-value= 0.0001), fear anxiety with rate of 9% (p-value= 0.0001), imaginary paranoia with rate of 23% (p-value= 0.0001), psychoticism with rate of 19% (p-value= 0.001) and the total degree of symptoms with rate of 36% (p-value= 0.0001). Discussion: The study concluded that alexithymia contribute to the symptoms in rates that ranged mostly between medium and strong levels, and there was no effect statistically significant for the interaction of alexithymia with age and gender in influencing behavioral symptoms. Ethical Approval H-B-R-17-Nov: National Center for Examinations & Educational Evaluation (NCEEE)