Alexithymia in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the prevalence of alexithymic characteristics in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), comparing them with a population of healthy subjects. Fifty-three SLE patients [American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria] and 31 healthy volunteer subjects were administered validated scales for alexithymia (Toronto alexythimia scale-20), psychopathology (brief symptom inventory; hospital anxiety and depression scale), personality dimensions (NEO five-factor inventory), and quality of life (short form-36 health survey). The SLE patient's clinical and laboratory evaluations were performed by computerized indicators of activity (SLE disease activity index), of accumulated damage (Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology damage index), length of disease, and therapy. A high prevalence of alexithymia was found in SLE patients. Alexithymia was associated with psychopathology, personality, and quality of life dimensions. Clinical variables and therapy were not correlated significantly with alexithymia, psychopathology, or quality of life dimensions. Multiple regression analysis showed that openness and depression were the two predictors for alexithymia in SLE patients. The present findings showed that alexithymia may play an important role in SLE patients. The difficulty in the management of emotions may lead to psychological distress and instability affecting the patient's quality of life, a relevant finding for the psychological, psychiatric, and clinical intervention and approach.

Emotion Regulation and Mental Representation of Attachment in Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

“…1 Nevertheless, some empirical evidence from the recent literature is consistent with the direction of the hypothesis emphasizing a movement from emotion dysregulation to disease vulnerability. The works of Barbosa et al (2009Barbosa et al ( , 2011aBarbosa et al ( , 2011b investigating the relationship between alexithymia and clinical variables in a sample of patients with SLE failed to find any significant correlation. We have confirmed the same result in a recent study (Barbasio et al, 2011) that showed an absence of correlations between disease activity, cumulative damage, and alexithymia in patients with SLE.…”

“…In particular, recent data suggest that a disturbance in affect regulation may be a key feature in SLE, in that it may increase perceived stress and influence the intensity or the duration of physiological stress responses (Barbosa et al, 2009(Barbosa et al, , 2011a(Barbosa et al, , 2011b.…”

Alexithymia in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A Tight Relation with Mood States

“…In a study on 53 SLE, Barbosa et al described a positive correlation between alexithymia and psychopathological symptoms as depression, anxiety, psychoticism, neuroticism and a negative correlation with quality of life domains as pain, vitality and general health perception. The authors did not find any relationship between alexithymia and SLE disease parameters as disease activity or damage [17][18][19].…”

AB0569 Relationship between the levels of vitamin d and the activity in systemic lupus erythematosus in dominican republic

“…2 In the SLE, there is a high prevalence of non-optimal levels of vitamin D. A prevalence of 25 (OH) D insufficiency of 15% to 75% is reported. 3 Objectives: To determine the relationship between vitamin D levels and disease activity in SLE. Methods: It is a prospective, cross-sectional study, in all patients who attended the rheumatology clinic of the Hospital Docente Padre Billini in the period August -October 2017, where the levels of vitamin D and activity of the disease were measured with SELENA-SLEDAI (£3 without activity, 3-12 moderate activity,!12 high activity).…”

“…Vitamin D deficiency is defined as serum levels of 25 (OH) D<10 ng/ ml, insufficiency levels serum levels of 25 (OH) D of <30 ng/ml. 3 Inclusion criteria: all patients with at least 18 years of age who met the SLE SLICC 2012 classification criteria were included with determination of vitamin D and calcium. Results: 45 patients who met criteria SLE SLICC 2012 were included.…”