Cognitive and social correlates of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale

Abstract

The authors examine the relationship of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) to sociodemographic characteristics, medical history, symptomatology, and illness cognition in a sample of 244 family medicine patients. The TAS had moderate internal reliability. In multiple regression analysis, the TAS was related to age, education, depressive symptoms, emotion suppression, self-consciousness, illness worry, and tendency to attribute somatic symptoms to psychological causes. Factor analysis of the TAS yielded four factors: Factor 1 (difficulty identifying feelings and bodily sensations) was related to education, social desirability, depressive symptoms, and private body-consciousness. Factor 2 (externally oriented thinking) was related to emotion suppression and self-consciousness. Factor 3 (difficulty expressing feelings to others) was related to age, social desirability, severity of past medical illness, depressive and somatic symptoms, and emotion suppression. Factor 4 (reduced daydreaming) was related to age and self-consciousness. The TAS measures conceptually distinct dimensions that are best studied as separate factors in psychosomatic models.