Alexithymia, aggressive behavior and depression among Lebanese adolescents: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: For a long time, Lebanon has been considered an unstable country. This can have a negative impact on Lebanese adolescents that consequently face secondary emotional stress, leading to more mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and alexithymia. The objective of this study was to assess the association between alexithymia, depression and aggressive behavior in a sample of Lebanese adolescents. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, conducted between September 2018 and February 2019, which enrolled 568 young adolescents aged between 15 and 18 years using a proportionate sample from two Lebanese governorates. Out of 750 questionnaires distributed, 568 (75.73%) were completed and collected back. Results: The mean age was 15.87 ± 0.82 years, with 302 (53.2%) females; 180 (31.7%) were alexithymic, 193 (34.0%) and 181 (31.9%) had moderate (scores between (89 and 111) and high (scores ≥ 112) aggression respectively, whereas 176 (31.0%) and 149 (26.2%) had moderate (scores between 3 and 4) and high (scores ≥ 5) depression respectively. Higher levels of alexithymia were significantly associated with higher depression (Beta = 0.44), higher total aggression (Beta = 0.78), higher physical aggression (Beta = 0.24), higher verbal aggression (Beta = 0.14), higher anger (Beta = 0.22), and higher hostility (Beta = 0.19). Conclusion: The prevalence of alexithymic behaviors, as well as aggression and depression in Lebanese students appears to be very high in comparison with students worldwide. Alexithymia was significantly associated with higher depression, physical and verbal aggression, anger and hostility among adolescents. Factors underlying the high level of alexithymia remain not fully elucidated.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder and childhood maltreatment, adulthood stressful life events and depression among Lebanese university students: a structural equation modeling approach

“…In relation to the Lebanese context, recent findings showed that 28.9% of Lebanese adolescents had suicidal ideation [ 53 ], 31.7% were alexithymic and 26% had depression in its severe forms [ 54 ]. Moreover, 28.9% of Lebanese adults had suicidal ideation [ 44 ], 20.8% had alexithymia [ 55 ], 32.9 and 26.9% suffered from mild-to-moderate and severe -to-very severe depression [ 31 ], whereas 19.9 and 18.4% had moderate and severe anxiety [ 56 ] respectively.…”

Influence of Alexithymia on Somatic Complaints among Japanese Adolescents: A survey research

“…Participants would answer anonymously so that individuals could not be identi ed or analyzed, as participation was optional. The survey form was distributed to 3,034 Japanese adolescents (aged [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]; answers that contained omissions and answers obtained from subjects who were aged 21 and over were considered invalid responses and were excluded. Thus, the nal number of valid responses was 2,766, obtained from participants aged 12-20 (626 male junior high school students, 580 female junior high school students, 620 male high school students, 714 female high school students, 124 male university students, and 102 female university students).…”

“…There are fewer studies on adolescent alexithymia than those on adulthood. However, previous studies focusing on adolescence have reported signi cant correlations between alexithymic tendencies and somatic complaints [15][16][17], such as adolescents with suspected irritable bowel syndrome were identi ed with signi cantly higher level of alexithymic tendencies [18], and that alexithymic tendencies had a signi cant positive correlation with depression [19][20][21].…”

“…In Finnish youths (aged 12 to 17), alexithymia scores decreased from early to mid-adolescence [25]. Canadian youths (aged [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] showed no signi cant difference in alexithymia scores between the ages of 13 and 18, yet showed a signi cant decrease when participants were aged 19 or older [24]. The study considers decreasing alexithymia scores to be due to emotional consciousness naturally increasing with age, as proposed in alexithymia developmental theory [29,30].…”

The Relationship Between Difficulty in Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia With Hostile Attribution Bias and Anger in in Adolescent Boys With High Bullying: a Path Analysis

“…Adolescence is a transitional period of development between childhood and adulthood, adolescents are described with unique behaviors (1,2). Adolescence is an important developmental stage that is signi cant in terms of physical importance, change, and cognitive, behavioral, and social vulnerability, and one of the developmental challenges that occurred during this period (3).…”