Alexithymia

Given that mental health plays a leading role in ensuring dynamism and efficiency in any society, the present study aimed to investigate the correlations of alexithymia and perceived stress with mental health among the medical students. The present work was a descriptive and correlational study, and the statistical population comprised all students in the 18-31 age range studying at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences during the academic year 2013-2014 (N=3730). Then a sample of 591 students was collected through the stratified random sampling. For data collection, three instruments were utilized: Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) by Begbie et al. (1994), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) by Cohen et al. (1983), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) by Goldberg (1972). To analyze data, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, regression analysis and canonical correlation were employed. The results of the present study revealed that alexithymia and perceived stress were significantly and positively correlated with depression, anxiety, somatic complaints, social dysfunction, and the total score of mental health. Additionally, the results indicated that mental health was explained by alexithymia and perceived stress. Accordingly, the total score of mental health could be predicted by difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and perceived stress. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that perceived stress had a higher weight in predicting the hybrid variable consisting of the components of mental health, a good indication that perceived stress could predict mental health more than alexithymia. So, to treat mental disorders, this point should be taken into consideration. Keywords: Alexithymia, Perceived Stress, Mental Health Introduction Given that mental health is one of the pivots around which health assessment in any society revolves, it undoubtedly plays a major role in ensuring dynamism and efficiency in any society (). Moreover, university students are among the privileged strata whereby the future of any society is developed. Hence, their mental health is of particular importance in learning and raising scientific awareness (). Some studies have pointed towards the prevalence of mental disorders among students. One example would be a study conducted by Mosavi et al. (2012) in which a prevalence of 43.3% of mental disorders was reported among the university students (). The second example would be a study performed by Shariati et al. (2002) in which the results revealed that the nationwide prevalence of mental disorders among the university students was 15.6% (). As the third example, Asadi et al. (2007) reported that the prevalence of mental disorders among the students at Tehran University of Medical Sciences was 44% (). It seems that the identification of factors associated with mental health of university students can be highly beneficial to treatment and prevention. One of the relevant factors in this regard can be alexithymia because Mutant (2007) argues that those who can recognize their own feelings and express their emotional states effectively will be better equipped to deal with problems in life and will be more successful in getting along with the environment and others, resulting in their greater mental health. In fact, alexithymia is a construct that was …show more content…
It refers to one’s inability to recognize and express emotions, use concrete speech and thoughts associated with external events, and paucity of fantasies in life. Alexithymia comprises four main characteristics: 1) difficulties identifying feelings (DIF), 2) difficulties describing feelings (DDF), 3) constricted imagination, and 4) concrete cognitive styles (). Alexithymia is seen by some others as one’s reduced ability to identify and describe feelings as well as one’s inability to distinguish between them (). It is viewed by some others as a personality trait that includes disorders in perceiving somatic positions, cognitive responses to those positions, and verbal communication (). From the perspective of cognitive sciences, emotions are viewed as a set of schemas that are based on information processing and include processes, symbolic and non-symbolic visualizations (). Individuals suffering from emotional dysregulation (ED) will not able to detect and distinguish between their emotions and can 't perceive and describe their thoughts and feelings (). They also exaggerate the normal physical arousals, and the physical symptoms of emotional arousal are misinterpreted (). This deficiency prevents emotional self-regulation and impedes successful adaptation (). Moreover, some studies have pointed to the relationship between this personality trait and the psychological processing