Impact of alexithymia on asthma managment

Àouadi, S.; Bejar, D.; Gahrsalli, Houda; Khalifa, Islem Bel Haj; Guermani, Manel; Ellouze, F.; Maâlej, S.; Gharbi, L. Douik El

doi:10.1183/13993003.congress-2015.oa4483

Cited by 2 publications

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“…34 With respect to disease severity and control, a publication addressing the impact of alexithymia on asthma management reported higher TAS-20 scores to be associated with decreased pulmonary function (p = 0.02) and worse asthma control score (p = 0.04). 30 This concurs with our results, where individuals with alexithymia had a higher proportion of severe disease as well as uncontrolled asthma than those Reference category for gender was "female"; for education level, "no education"; for marital status, "single"; for asthma severity, "mild asthma"; for level of adherence, "some level of non-adherence. "…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…However, it is not as high as observed in other publication with asthma patients were prevalence was 42%. 30 Interestingly, asthma patients seem to have a higher prevalence of alexithymia than other obstructive respiratory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), where prevalence of alexithymia is equal to the general population unless the disease exacerbates. 31,32 Understanding how alexithymia gives rise to chronic diseases is a subject of complexity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

et al. 2020

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Objectives: In asthmatic patients, studies suggest that alexithymia leads to negative consequences and emotions that can affect physical, psychological, and social aspects of life. We designed this study to determine the frequency of alexithymia in Latin American patients with asthma, as well as to understand how this personality trait and each of its components interact with asthma severity and demographic variables, and their implications on treatment adherence and disease control under such setting. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study, involving 265 Latin American patients with asthma. Patient demographics and clinical characteristics were reported. The presence of alexithymia, asthma severity, and control, as well as treatment adherence, was analyzed. To assess the presence of alexithymia, the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used. For the statistical analyses, we performed Kendall’s tau-b correlation coefficient, chi-square tests for association, and one-way analysis of variance. Results: A total of 265 patients participated in the study with a gender distribution of 69.4% female and an average age of 54.7 years. In total, 30.2% of individuals presented alexithymia. There was a statistically significant correlation between educational level and 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale categories ( p < .001), as well as a higher proportion of severe (35.1%, p = .001) and uncontrolled (50.0%, p = .185) asthma in patients with alexithymia. A higher proportion of patients with some level of non-adherence was seen on those with uncontrolled asthma (68.5%, p = .008). Conclusion: Our results suggest that in our sample, 3 in 10 Latin American asthma patients have alexithymia, and such mental condition is more common in those individuals with lower educational levels. Individuals with alexithymia present with severe asthma more frequently than do patients with possible or no alexithymia and are also more likely to have their disease uncontrolled.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

et al. 2020

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“…As a personality trait designed by Sifneos (1973), alexithymia has been found to be high in asthma patients (Aouadi et al, 2015; Ghorbani, Khosravani, Ardakani, Alvani, & Akbari, 2017; Khosravani, Alvani, Bastan, Ardakani, & Akbari, 2016). Alexithymia is associated with dysthymia and panic troubles, decreased pulmonary function, poor asthma control, high emergency room visits, irregular follow‐up or poor adherence to asthma treatment and poor quality of life in patients with asthma (Aouadi et al, 2015). Alexithymia refers to impairments in experiencing and processing emotions (Taylor, Bagby, & Parker, 1997) and is measured by some subscales derived from one of the commonly used scales for the assessment of alexithymic traits such as the Toronto Alexithymia Scale‐20 (TAS‐20; Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alexithymia, empathy, negative affect and physical symptoms in patients with asthma

Khosravani

Ardestani

Alvani

et al. 2020

Clin Psychology and Psychoth

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Although alexithymia has been found to be associated with physical symptoms in psychosomatic disorders such as asthma, mechanisms linking this association are unknown. However, affective alexithymic features may be associated with physical symptoms in the presence of deficits in affective characteristics such as low empathy and high negative affect. This study aimed to assess direct effects of alexithymic traits on physical symptoms and indirect effects of these subscales through empathy and negative affect (e.g. depressive, anxious and stress symptoms) by controlling for asthma severity in patients with asthma. Three hundred patients with asthma completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20), the Basic Empathy Scale (BES), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) and the Physical Symptoms Inventory (PSI). After controlling for asthma severity, the results showed that alexithymia subscales of the TAS-20 had no direct effects on physical symptoms, but the difficulty in identifying feelings (DIF) subscale of the TAS-20 was associated with affective empathy and negative affect. Affective empathy was significantly related to negative affect. Affective empathy and negative affect were associated with physical symptoms. The affective subscale of alexithymia on the TAS-20, that is DIF, indirectly affected physical symptoms through affective empathy and negative affect. Findings suggest that patients with asthma who have high levels of DIF may show high physical symptoms in the presence of low affective empathy and high negative affect.

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Impact of alexithymia on asthma managment

Cited by 2 publications

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Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

Alexithymia, empathy, negative affect and physical symptoms in patients with asthma

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