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Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity

OBJECTIVE: Alexithymia is considered to be a personality trait with a tendency to express psychological distress in somatic rather than emotional form and, therefore, may play a vital role in somatization. Although, such a propensity can be found in patients suffering from tinnitus, the relationship...

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Autores principales: Wielopolski, Jan, Kleinjung, Tobias, Koch, Melanie, Peter, Nicole, Meyer, Martin, Rufer, Michael, Weidt, Steffi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5681746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29163242
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00223
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author Wielopolski, Jan
Kleinjung, Tobias
Koch, Melanie
Peter, Nicole
Meyer, Martin
Rufer, Michael
Weidt, Steffi
author_facet Wielopolski, Jan
Kleinjung, Tobias
Koch, Melanie
Peter, Nicole
Meyer, Martin
Rufer, Michael
Weidt, Steffi
author_sort Wielopolski, Jan
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: Alexithymia is considered to be a personality trait with a tendency to express psychological distress in somatic rather than emotional form and, therefore, may play a vital role in somatization. Although, such a propensity can be found in patients suffering from tinnitus, the relationship between alexithymic characteristics and the subjective experience of tinnitus severity remains yet unclear. Our aim was to evaluate which alexithymic characteristics are linked to the subjective experience of tinnitus symptomatology. METHODS: We evaluated tinnitus severity (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, THI), alexithymia (20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory, BDI) in 207 outpatients with tinnitus. Correlation analyses and multiple regression analyses were calculated in order to investigate the relationship between alexithymic characteristics, tinnitus severity, and depression. RESULTS: Highly significant positive correlations were found between THI total score and TAS-20 total score as well as BDI score. Regarding the TAS-20 subscales, multiple regression analyses showed that only the TAS-20 subscale “difficulty in identifying feelings” (DIF) and the BDI significantly predicted the subjective experience of tinnitus severity. Regarding the THI subscales, only higher scores of the THI subscale “functional” demonstrated an independent moderate association with higher scores for DIF. CONCLUSION: We found an independent association between the subjective experience of tinnitus severity and alexithymic characteristics, particularly with regard to limitations in the fields of mental, social, and physical functioning because of tinnitus and the difficulty of identifying feelings facet of alexithymia. These findings are conducive to a better understanding of affect regulation that may be important for the psychological adaptation of patients suffering from tinnitus.
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spelling pubmed-56817462017-11-21 Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity Wielopolski, Jan Kleinjung, Tobias Koch, Melanie Peter, Nicole Meyer, Martin Rufer, Michael Weidt, Steffi Front Psychiatry Psychiatry OBJECTIVE: Alexithymia is considered to be a personality trait with a tendency to express psychological distress in somatic rather than emotional form and, therefore, may play a vital role in somatization. Although, such a propensity can be found in patients suffering from tinnitus, the relationship between alexithymic characteristics and the subjective experience of tinnitus severity remains yet unclear. Our aim was to evaluate which alexithymic characteristics are linked to the subjective experience of tinnitus symptomatology. METHODS: We evaluated tinnitus severity (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, THI), alexithymia (20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, TAS-20), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory, BDI) in 207 outpatients with tinnitus. Correlation analyses and multiple regression analyses were calculated in order to investigate the relationship between alexithymic characteristics, tinnitus severity, and depression. RESULTS: Highly significant positive correlations were found between THI total score and TAS-20 total score as well as BDI score. Regarding the TAS-20 subscales, multiple regression analyses showed that only the TAS-20 subscale “difficulty in identifying feelings” (DIF) and the BDI significantly predicted the subjective experience of tinnitus severity. Regarding the THI subscales, only higher scores of the THI subscale “functional” demonstrated an independent moderate association with higher scores for DIF. CONCLUSION: We found an independent association between the subjective experience of tinnitus severity and alexithymic characteristics, particularly with regard to limitations in the fields of mental, social, and physical functioning because of tinnitus and the difficulty of identifying feelings facet of alexithymia. These findings are conducive to a better understanding of affect regulation that may be important for the psychological adaptation of patients suffering from tinnitus. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-11-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5681746/ /pubmed/29163242 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00223 Text en Copyright © 2017 Wielopolski, Kleinjung, Koch, Peter, Meyer, Rufer and Weidt. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Wielopolski, Jan
Kleinjung, Tobias
Koch, Melanie
Peter, Nicole
Meyer, Martin
Rufer, Michael
Weidt, Steffi
Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title_full Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title_fullStr Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title_full_unstemmed Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title_short Alexithymia Is Associated with Tinnitus Severity
title_sort alexithymia is associated with tinnitus severity
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5681746/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29163242
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00223
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