Alexithymia in primary health care patients

Although many studies have been published about the relationship between alexithymia and different somatic diseases, little is known about the occurrence of alexithymia in primary health care patients. The aim of the present study was to shed light on this problem. The study forms part of a larger project dealing with psychiatric morbidity in primary health care patients. The original material consisted of 1,000 randomly selected adult patients in Turku in 1989-90. As part of a follow-up study (N = 748) three years later, alexithymia was measured using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS). Primary care patients seemed to have commonly alexithymic features: The mean of the TAS-score was 64.41 +/- 11.71 for male and 63.51 +/- 11.86 for female patients. The results indicated that alexithymia was associated with psychological distress, age, educational level, and socioeconomic status. The nature of alexithymia is discussed.