Alexithymia and global psychosocial functioning: A study on patients with skin disease

ObjectiveThe relationship between alexithymia and psychosocial functioning has been investigated in a few studies using indirect measures of adaptation. We aimed at directly evaluating the relationship between alexithymia and global psychosocial functioning, as measured by a standardised scale.MethodsA large, consecutive sample of dermatological inpatients (N=545) completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Skindex-29 and were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Axis I disorders and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale.ResultsMultiple regression analysis was used to control for likely determinants of psychosocial functioning such as age, sex, education, burden of skin symptoms, and psychiatric morbidity. The GAF score was associated with psychiatric morbidity (β=−.63, P<.001), alexithymia (in particular, the difficulty identifying feelings subscale) (β=−.19, P<.001), and burden of skin symptoms (β=−.07, P<.05).ConclusionGiven the well-known association between poor psychosocial functioning and several behavioural risk factors for health, our study may provide a further reason for clinicians to pay attention to alexithymic features among their patients.