Alexithymia and functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID)

The purpose of this study was to examine alexithymia symptoms, demographic variables and the severity of gastrointestinal symptoms in a sample of patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) and a comparative sample of healthy controls.

The sample consisted of 237 individuals, 129 of whom were patients diagnosed with FGIDs. The patients referred to the psychosomatic disorders clinic_of Nour Hospital, Isfahan, Iran. The controlled group included 108 healthy individuals (without digestive diagnosis) matched with the patients by age, gender, marital and educational status. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Gastrointestinal Symptoms Rating Scale (GSRS) were used to collect data. Data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), correlation coefficients and Fisher's z.

There was a significant difference between patients with FGIDs and healthy controls in terms of number of alexithymia symptoms and severity of gastrointestinal symptoms. The results also indicated the existence of a relationship between educational level and alexithymia as well as its dimensions (difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings) in both groups. However, no significant differences were found between the two groups in this regard.

The findings of this study indicated that compared to the healthy control group, patients with FGIDs had higher scores of alexithymia and more severe somatic symptoms. Furthermore, higher educational levels were associated with decreased risk of alexithymia. Such finding might be due to higher ability to describe and identify emotions in patients with higher levels of education.