Relationship of Somatic Symptoms with Difficulty in Emotional Adjustment, Alexithymia and Traumatic Events in Adolescents Offenders

Aims: Somatization disorder refers to a set of disorders that include physical symptoms but are not fully explained by a general medical condition, direct effects of a substance, or other psychiatric disorder. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between difficulty in emotional adjustment, alexithymia, and traumatic events with somatic symptoms in adolescents of Tehran, Iran, Correctional Center.
This descriptive-correlational study was carried out in boys offenders of 15 to 18 year old who were in the Tehran, Iran, Correctional Center in 1395. 120 persons of these adolescents were selected by available sampling method. Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and Symptom Checklist 90 were used to data collection. The correlation coefficients of the studied indices were analyzed by multiple regression analysis in SPSS 19 software.
Findings: After conducting the tests among all participants, the total score of the emotional regulation questionnaire was 123.847±19.747, the total emotional score of 65.708±8.28 and the total score of the accident rate was 49.150±16.299. Results of multiple regression analysis by enter method showed that 15% of somatic symptoms variance was explained by difficulty in emotional adjustment, alexithymia, and traumatic events (F=7.980; p=0.001) but the only positive predictor of somatic symptoms was the traumatic events (t=4.031; p Childhood traumatic events and their impact on the individual are a strong explanation of somatic symptoms in adolescents residing in the Correctional Center.