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Alexithymia behaves as a personality trait over a 5-year period in Finnish general population
J K Salminen1, S Saarijärvi, T Toikka
1Laboratory for Population Research, Department of Health and Functional Capacity, National Public Health Institute, Turku, Finland. jouko.salminen@ktl.fi
Objective:
Temporal stability is a basic assumption underlying any personality trait construct. Previous research on the stability of alexithymia has led to a controversy over whether alexithymia should be viewed as a state-dependent phenomenon or as a stable personality trait. The aim of this 5-year longitudinal study was to examine the temporal stability of alexithymia in the general population in Finland.
Methods:
Alexithymia was measured with the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) at the baseline and 5 years later.
Results:
The test-retest correlations of the TAS-20 total and factor-specific scores at the baseline and at the 5-year follow-up ranged from moderate to high in both genders, reflecting a rather high relative stability of the TAS-20 scores over a period of 5 years.
Conclusions:
The findings of our study suggest that alexithymia behaves like a stable personality trait in the general population.
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