Does alexithymia, independent of depressive and anxiety disorders, correlate with the severity of somatic manifestations among patients with medically unexplained physical symptoms?

Abstract

Background: Medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) are highly prevalent, frequently co-occurring with psychiatric symptoms such as depression, alexithymia, and anxiety. Objective: To evaluate the relation between depression, anxiety, and alexithymia and severity of somatic symptoms in patients with MUPS. Method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 196 patients suffering from MUPS. The patients were recruited from tertiary care internal medicine and neuropsychiatry clinics during the first quarter of 2019. The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-15), (PHQ-9), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7), Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders Clinician Version (SCID-I-CV), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) were employed to assess somatic severity, depression, anxiety, major mental disorders, and alexithymia in the sample of patients. Results: The results of the study indicate that GAD-7 and PHQ-9 scores had a positive correlation with PHQ-15 ( p < 0.05) in multivariate regression. In contrast, TAS-20 was not independently correlated with PHQ-15. Adding TAS-20 to GAD-7 and PHQ-9 in the equation of the regression model enhances the predictive capacity of the model ( p < 001). Conclusion: The results of the study indicate that only anxiety and depressive symptoms, but not alexithymia, were associated independently with MUPS severity.

Unveiling the enigma: physicians' perceptions of functional neurological disorders in Egypt—a cross-sectional study

“…In cases of functional seizures, most GPs felt that neurology and psychiatry should be responsible for their diagnosis and management [50], while most physiotherapists felt physiotherapy to be an appropriate treatment [34]. Given that anxiety and depression are prevalent in Egyptian FND patients, psychiatric consultation might be of benefit [57]. However, literature demonstrated that multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation for functional movement disorders, improved patient function, somatic symptoms, depression, and anxiety [58], and this was supported by a considerable portion of our sample.…”

The Mediating Role of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in the Relationship Between Early Maladaptive Schemas, Alexithymia, and Emotional Intelligence With Somatic Symptoms in People With Somatic Symptoms Disorder

“…Many studies have confirmed the relationship between alexithymia and psychological arousal of biological systems pertinent to emotions and SSD. For example, De Vroege et al ( 2022), Rady et al (2021), andHadji-Michael et al (2019) in their findings have highlighted the alexithymia component as one of the predictors of this disorder. Their results indicated that problems in recognizing and describing emotions (alexithymia) could lead to misinterpretation of the perceptual aspects of the body, which can consequently foster body-checking behaviors and physical discomfort.…”

Assessment of the mind-body connection: preliminary psychometric evidence for a new self-report questionnaire

“…Alexithymia is underpinned by deficits in identifying feelings and differentiating between feelings and bodily sensations associated with emotional arousal, describing feelings, and an externally oriented thinking style, by which there is a preoccupation with details and features of the external environment [86]. Alexithymia is of clinical significance and is associated with subjective health and wellbeing perceptions, including somatisation (i.e., the tendency to experience and report physical symptoms due to emotional distress, [60]), physical symptom severity [78], and health-related quality of life [54,62]. Various studies report a link between interoception and alexithymia (e.g., [15,46,93]), with findings suggesting that alexithymia is the culmination of poor interoceptive perception across multiple channels [67] and even convergence [44,96].…”