Somatization and alexithymia in young adult Finnish population
We assessed alexithymia and alexithymic features among young adult subjects with and without somatization symptoms in an epidemiological setting with a sample of young adults. The sample consisted of urban 31-year-old subjects ( N=1002). Data on somatization were gathered from a review of all public...
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Published in | General hospital psychiatry Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 244 - 249 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, NY
Elsevier Inc
01.07.2005
Elsevier Science |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | We assessed alexithymia and alexithymic features among young adult subjects with and without somatization symptoms in an epidemiological setting with a sample of young adults.
The sample consisted of urban 31-year-old subjects (
N=1002). Data on somatization were gathered from a review of all public health outpatient records. Subjects with four or more somatization symptoms according to the
DSM-III-R criteria were considered somatizers. The 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to measure alexithymia. Subjects with a total TAS score over 60 were considered as being alexithymic, and those with a score under 52 were considered nonalexithymic. Subjects with a total TAS score from 52 to 60 were considered as having alexithymic features.
The prevalence of alexithymia was 6.0% among somatizers and 4.8% among subjects without somatization symptoms, and the prevalence of alexithymic features was 7.5% and 12.6%, respectively.
No association was found between alexithymia and somatization in young adult general population. The earlier theory of the association between alexithymia and somatization may be questionable. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0163-8343 1873-7714 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2005.04.005 |