Alexithymic features in patients with panic disorder

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Abstract
Since Sifneos coined the term alexithymia, alexithymic features have been noted to be associated with various diseases including various psychosomatic disorders, several somatic diseases, and chronic pain. There have not, however, been many studies concerning the association between alexithymia and various psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this study was to ascertain how alexithymia and panic disorder are interrelated. The subject group consisted of 50 consecutive chronic panic disorder patients seen at a private outpatient psychiatric care facility. The controls consisted of 50 healthy students at a nursing college. Alexithymia was measured in this study with The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS). According to the TAS 24% of the panic disorder patients were assessed to be true alexithymics (TAS score, >73) and an additional 36% probable alexithymics (TAS score, 63-73). In the control group there were no true alexithymic cases and only 12% probable alexithymic cases (p<0.001). We consider this finding to be in accordance with that obtained previously, indicating that there is some evidence of somatic etiology in a certain proportion of panic disorder patients.

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