Prevalence of alexithymia in eating disorders in a clinical sample of 800 Mexican patients

Abstract

Introduction: The inability to identify, express feelings, and not distinguish between emotions and bodily sensations, is known as alexithymia. In 1988, it developed The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), consists of 20 items and three factors: A) difficulty of identifying feelings and differences between feelings and bodily sensations; b) difficulty of describing feelings; and c) externally oriented thinking. It's considered that people with eating disorders have specific deficits in identify and communicate their feelings. Objective: The present study has as purpose to the instrument validation. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study and psychometric character design of a single sample, formed of 435 persons suffering eating disorder (ED), with an age range of 12-68 years, of which 91% were women and 9% were men. To obtain the reliability of the instrument, applies internal consistency test, which resulted in an alpha of 0.89, then applied a factor analysis of principals components with oblimin rotation. Results: According to statistical analysis, were eliminated six items, so the scale finished with 14 items, and to analyze it observed that these items correspond with the two main factors of the original scale. The ED patients present alexithymia. Discussion: The scale satisfies the criteria of validity necessary for use in this population.