Alexithymia and functional gastrointestinal disorders

The purpose of this study was to compare patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) and normal persons in terms of alexithymia, severity of gastrointestinal symptoms, and demographic variables.

This causal-comparative research included 129 FGID patients who were referred to a psychosomatic disorders clinic in Isfahan, Iran. A matched group of 108 healthy individuals (without digestive diagnoses) was also considered as the control group. Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20) and gastrointestinal symptoms rating scale (GSRS) were used to evaluate the participants. Data was analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance, correlation coefficient and Fisher's Z test.

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 a relationship between education 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 patients with FGIDs had higher scores of alexithymia and more severe somatic symptoms compared to the healthy control group. Furthermore,higher education levels were associated with lower risks of alexithymia. Such a finding might have been due to the higher ability of more educated patients in describing and identifying emotions.