Alexithymia in persons with schizophrenia: Does gender matter

Pages: 1722-1725
Poonam and Arunima Gupta (Department of Psychology, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana)

Identify in gand communicating own feelings are necessary for everyone because it affects our mental health. The person whois not able to identify the emotion scan exhibit signs of frustration toward self as well others. The persons with schizophrenia have difficulty in understanding and expressing their feelings as it affects persons’ daily life as well as their emotional states. Alexithymia can be considered as vulnerable factor for the development of such symptoms in persons with schizophrenia. Thus the present study was planned in account to assess the degree of alexithymia in persons with schizophrenia which is judged to be an underlying cause. To find out the gender differences on alexithymia in persons with schizophrenia. A two group design was adopted. A purposive sample of 60 persons with schizophrenia out of which 30 male and 30 female fulfilling the selection criteria was administered Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) by Bag by, Parker and Taylor (1994a). The results were analyzed using t-test.Indicated that significant gender differences were found on total scores of alexithymia as well as on difficulty in describing feelings, but no differences were evident on difficulty in identifying and externally oriented feelings. The study concluded that males with schizophrenia had more degree of alexithymia than their counterparts which warrants clinical implications.