Is Alexithymia a Culture-Bound Construct? Validity and Reliability of the Japanese Versions of the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and Modified Beth Israel Hospital Psychosomatic Questionnaire

Fukunishi, Isao; Nakagawa, Takayuki; Nakamura, Hiroshi; Kikuchi, Mani; Takubo, Mariko

doi:10.2466/pr0.1997.80.3.787

Cited by 68 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The original authors have suggested a total score of 61 or higher for alexithymia screening. Discriminant validity of this cutoff point among Japanese college students and psychiatric outpatients has been confirmed by Fukunishi et al [36]against the modified version of the Beth Israel Hospital Psychosomatic Questionnaire [37]as a gold standard.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

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Alexithymia, Depression and Social Support among Japanese Workers

Kojima

Senda

Nagaya

et al. 2003

Psychother Psychosom

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Background: A number of studies have shown that social support has a direct beneficial effect on well-being and also serves as a buffer to protect people from health problems due to excessive stress. Although preliminary studies report a positive relationship of alexithymia both with depression and reduced social support, there is no study examining whether the beneficial effect of social support on depression differs with the presence of alexithymia. Methods: A total of 120 workers aged 19–39 completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to measure alexithymia, the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) to evaluate depressive symptomatology, and the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) to assess job strain based on Karasek’s demand-control-support model. The interrelationship among TAS-20, BDI-II and 3 subscales of JCQ (job demand, control, and support) were examined. Results: A significant association of depression with low support and high alexithymia was observed. Alexithymia was also associated with reduced support. Further, a statistically significant interaction between alexithymia and support in terms of their effect on depression was observed. Nonalexithymic individuals with low support showed a significantly higher depression score than those who received high support, while alexithymics did not differ in their depression score depending on the degree of support. Consistent results were obtained from the logistic regression analysis examining the odds ratio for depression by support by alexithymia; a significantly increased odds ratio for depression associated with low social support was observed only among nonalexithymics. Conclusions: Alexithymic individuals might be unable to benefit from social support because of their cognitive deficits of emotion.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Alexithmia was assessed using the Japanese version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) [36]. The TAS-20 is a self-report scale developed by Bagby et al in 1994 [37, 38], and is currently the most frequently used tool to measure alexithymia [12, 15, 18, 39, 40, 41, 42].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alexithymia, Depression and Social Support among Japanese Workers

Kojima

Senda

Nagaya

et al. 2003

Psychother Psychosom

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“…All of the participants completed a battery of well-validated self-reporting inventories described below for psychological evaluation. These self-report measures were translated into Japanese using the back-translation method [24,25,26,27]. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depression, Alexithymia and Long-Term Mortality in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

Kojima

Hayano²,

Suzuki

et al. 2010

Psychother Psychosom

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Background: Depression increases the risk of mortality in hemodialysis patients. Alexithymia, a disorder of affect regulation, has also been reported to be associated with mortality risk in the general population. We conducted a prospective study to estimate the independent impact of depression and alexithymia on long-term mortality. Methods: A total of 230 hemodialysis outpatients, with a mean age of 56.3 ± 9.6 years, completed a batch of self-report measures including the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Survival status was confirmed every 6 months for up to 5 years. The presence of depression and alexithymia was defined by a BDI-II score of ≧14 and a TAS-20 score of ≧61, respectively. Results: During the follow-up period, 27 deaths were confirmed. Both depression and alexithymia were associated with an increased risk for all-cause mortality; the age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio for depression was 2.36 (95% CI: 1.08–5.15; p = 0.03) and that for alexithymia was 4.29 (95% CI: 1.95–9.42; p < 0.001). Depression lost its statistical significance after controlling for alexithymia, whereas alexithymia remained significant even after adjusting for the baseline depression, health status (the summary scores of the SF-36), marital status and clinical covariates (multivariate adjusted hazard ratio = 3.62; 95% CI: 1.32–9.93; p = 0.01). Conclusions: Alexithymia is a strong independent risk factor for all-cause mortality in hemodialysis patients.

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“…Previous studies have suggested that the TAS-20 has adequate validity and reliability [2,3] and that the Japanese version of the TAS-20 also has high construct validity and reliability [18]. In this study, the TAS-20 total score was used as an index of the degree of alexithymia.…”

Section: Zung Self-rating Depression Scale Sdsmentioning

confidence: 99%