Prevalence of alexithymia among medical students in Nepal: A cross-sectional study based on a self-administered questionnaire

Abstract

Background and Aims: Alexithymia is a state in which one cannot comprehend and put their emotions or feelings into words. It is a disturbance that is common among general population as well as people with mental health disorders. Medical students are at higher risk of developing alexithymia due to the extensive nature of their course and clinical postings. The presence of alexithymia is negatively correlated with the self-efficacy of the students eventually affecting self-care and patient care in the future. The aim of this study is to find the prevalence of alexithymia among medical students in Nepal and know its associated factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study used convenient sampling for selecting responders and the TAS-20 tool for data collection. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 20. Frequency was calculated for all the variables. Prevalence with 95% confidence interval [CI] is reported and the χ2 test is used to see the difference in alexithymia status among different categories of dichotomous independent variables. Results: Out of 386 students, 380 of them responded. The ratio of male and female was 1.8 with the mean age of 22.22 ± 1.77 years. The prevalence of alexithymia was found to be 22.89% (95% CI, 18.9−27.1). There was no statistically significant difference between the presence and absence of alexithymia among categories of sex, year of study, staying at hostel, involvement in extracurricular activities, involvement in daily exercise/yoga/outdoor sports, and smoking habit. Conclusion: The prevalence of alexithymia in our study was 22.89% with no association with known factors.