Prevalence and Correlates of Alexithymia and Its Relationship With Life Events in Chinese Adolescents With Depression During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Objectives: The incidence of psychological and behavioral problems and depression among adolescents is increasing year by year, which has become an important public health problem. Alexithymia, as an important susceptible factor of adolescent depression, may continue to develop and strengthen under the stimulation of COVID-19-related stressors. However, no studies have focused on alexithymia in adolescent depression during the pandemic in China. This study aims to investigate the incidence and related factors of alexithymia in adolescent depression during the pandemic.Methods: Three hundred adolescent patients were enrolled from October 2020 to May 2021. The general demographic information of all participants was collected, and the clinical characteristics were assessed by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check (ASLEC) List, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and the Positive and Negative Suicide Ideation (PANSI) Inventory.Results: The incidence of alexithymia was significantly higher among adolescents with depression (76.45%) during the pandemic. There were significant differences in school bullying, disease severity, ASLEC score, CTQ score and PANSI score between adolescents with and without alexithymia. In addition, learning stress, health and adaptation problems during the pandemic may be influential factors in alexithymia of adolescent depression (P < 0.05).Conclusions: According to the results, we found a high incidence of alexithymia in adolescent depression during the pandemic. More support and attention from families, schools and society is needed to develop preventive and targeted psychological interventions as early as possible.

Alexithymia in adolescents in Poland: an important issue in the holistic approach to patients’ care

“…The COVID-19 pandemic with its subsequent consequences might increase the prevalence of alexithymia [29]. In our study, alexithymia was demonstrated in 31% of adolescents.…”

“…Several investigators documented that COVID-19 pandemic increased the stress and anxiety in many people [22][23][24]. Moreover, it was found that COVID-19 pandemic also influenced alexithymia [29,30,37,38]. One could hypothesize that this unique stressful situation related to the pandemic might also change the observed pattern of gender distribution in alexithymia.…”

“…It is clear that the alexithymic traits may affect the individual response to psychological stress. On the other hand, several studies linked alexithymia with numerous psychological conditions, including stress [16,17,29,30].…”

Prevalence and Relationships between Alexithymia, Anhedonia, Depression and Anxiety during the Belgian COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

“…Among the studies exploring alexithymia in COVID-19 infection, none, to our knowledge, has assessed the effect of lockdown on the prevalence of alexithymia in the population [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ]. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies [ 15 , 16 ], using the TAS-20, reported 11% of alexithymia in the general population of the United Kingdom and 15.8% in Italian residents aged 18 years or more.…”

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, several studies [ 15 , 16 ], using the TAS-20, reported 11% of alexithymia in the general population of the United Kingdom and 15.8% in Italian residents aged 18 years or more. Another study [ 17 ] found a high prevalence of alexithymia (76.4%) among Chinese adolescents with depression during the pandemic. Tang et al, 2020 [ 18 ], reported high levels of alexithymia associated with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder in home-quarantined Chinese university students.…”