Alexithymia in patients with cardiac diseases and patients with mood disorders– preliminary reports
Keywords:
alexithymia, cardiological diseases, depressionAbstract
Aim: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the intensity of the syndrome and the various dimensions of alexithymia constituted in patients treated for cardiac diseases. The results obtained were compared with a group of patients with known bipolar disorder.
Material and methods: The subjects were patients aged between 18-65 years of age (M = 50,00 years, SD = 10,68), treated for co-ronary heart disease, heart failure, heart rhythm disorders, including post myocardial infarction and hypertension. The control group consisted of 28 patients with mental disorders - mood disorders aged 18-65 years of age (M = 50,43 years, SD = 13,17), 10 women and 18 men. The study used a scale of Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) containing 40 questions divided into 5 dimensions.
Results: Patients with cardiac diseases compared to people with mood disorders are characterized by lower levels of alexithymia and three of the five dimensions making up the deficit of personality. Statistically significant differences were associated with the level of intensity in the difficulty in verbalizing emotional and poor insight into their own emotional experiences. Taking into account their gender subjects did not differ statistically significantly in terms of the analyzed variables. With increasing age only one of the variables of alexithymia components significantly enhances: poverty of imagination.
Conclusions: Patients with heart disease differ statistically from the control group in terms of two dimensions alexithymia: diffi-culty in verbalizing emotional and poor insight into their own emotional experiences to give lower results for these variables. The pre-sented preliminary analysis of reports of research, and understanding of the relationship between cardiovascular disease and alexithy-mia syndrome requires further analysis.
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