بررسي مقايسه اي ناگويي خلقي در بيماران مبتلا به اختلالات سايكوتيك ، غير سايكوتيك و افراد بهنجار

Comparative Study of Alexithymia in Patients with Psychotic Disorders, Non Psychotic and Normal People

Introduction & Objective: The previous studies investigating alexithymia in psychotic patients indicated that such patients have difficulty in identifying and expressing their feelings. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of alexithymia in patients with psychotic disorders, non psychotic disorders, and normal people. Materials & Methods: In this causal-comparative study 60 psychotic, 60 non-psychotic patients and 140 students were selected via available sampling method (the results of Levenʹs test indicated the homogeneity of variance among the three groups). Using Torento Alexithymia Scale( TAS-20),we compared them with each others. Results: Results showed that the extent of alexithymia in psychotic and non-psychotic patients was higher than that of normal people(P<0.001). Also the extent of difficulty in identifying , describing feelings and externally-oriented thinking is more serious in psychotic patients than in the other groups and more severe in men than women. Conclusion: Since the findings of the study showed that psychotic patients are more inflected with high level of alexithymia , it is essential to contrive a special treatment (such as Emotional- focused therapy) to decrease alexithymia in these patients.