Τίτλος:
Alexithymia, anxiety and depression in patients with psoriasis: a
case-control study
Γλώσσες Τεκμηρίου:
Αγγλικά
Περίληψη:
Background: Alexithymia, the difficulty in describing or recognizing
emotions, has been associated with various psychosomatic pathologies
including psoriasis. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence
of alexithymia and its association with anxiety and depression in
patients with psoriasis compared with healthy participants, while taking
into consideration demographic and clinical variables.
Methods: One hundred and eight psoriatic patients and 100 healthy
participants from the general population completed the Toronto
Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
(HADS). The severity of patients’ psoriasis was clinically assessed
using the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI).
Results: Psoriatic patients had higher levels of alexithymia compared
with healthy participants. While a rather high rate of psoriatic
patients presented anxiety and depression as defined by the HADS, the
differences that were found in comparison with the control group were
not significant. Neither alexithymia nor its dimensions, difficulty in
identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty in describing feelings (DDF) and
externally oriented thinking (EOT), were associated with gender or
psoriasis severity. Age was associated only with EOT, which was
independent of depression and anxiety. Higher anxiety and depression
were connected with higher alexithymia and DIF, while higher anxiety
with higher DDF as well.
Conclusions: The alexithymia prevalence was higher in psoriatic patients
than that in healthy participants, while it was positively correlated
with anxiety and depression. Difficulty in identifying feelings was
connected with both anxiety and depression, whereas difficulty in
describing them was only with anxiety. Finally, externally oriented
thinking was predicted only from age.
Συγγραφείς:
Korkoliakou, Panagiota
Christodoulou, Christos
Kouris, Anargyros
and Porichi, Evgenia
Efstathiou, Vasiliki
Kaloudi, Eythymia and
Kokkevi, Anna
Stavrianeas, Nikolaos
Papageorgiou, Charalabos and
Douzenis, Athanasios
Περιοδικό:
Annals of General Psychiatry
Λέξεις-κλειδιά:
Alexithymia; Anxiety; Depression; Psoriasis; TAS-20
DOI:
10.1186/s12991-014-0038-7
