Somatization and alexithymia in young adult Finnish population

Age is strongly associated with alexithymia in the general population

“…On the one hand, alexithymia has been associated with somatization and overemphasized reporting of somatic symptoms [43,44]; however, there is evidence of the two phenomena being unrelated to each other [45,46]. In our analyses, the subjective perception of health remained significant in regression analyses for all subjects and women separately, but not for men.…”

Relationship between Attachment Style, Parental Bonding and Alexithymia in Adults with Somatoform Disorders

“…Kokkonen et al [48] found significant alexithymia in 9.4% of male and 5.2% of female subjects and Posse et al [49] found a prevalence of 7.9% in a non-clinical female population. On The other hand, a recent study [50] demonstrated a lower prevalence of alexithymia of only 6.0% among patients with somatization and 4.8% among subjects without somatization symptoms, in contrast to Burba et al [51], who found higher levels of alexithymia in adolescents with SFD than in healthy controls. This requires further investigation.…”

The Assessment of Alexithymia in Medical Settings: Implications for Understanding and Treating Health Problems

“…A review of 18 samples found a mean correlation of r = .23 between alexithymia and somatic symptoms and also found that alexithymia was more prevalent in people with somatoform disorders than in healthy controls (De Gucht & Heiser, 2003). Several recent studies have supported this (De Gucht, Fischler, & Heiser, 2004a, 2004bWearden, Lamberton, Crook, & Walsh, 2005), although the effect may be stronger in clinical than in healthy populations (Karvonen et al, 2005). Of course, symptoms often accompany disease, and several studies have tried to separate the contribution of alexithymia to symptoms versus disease.…”