Level of alexithymia as a measure of personality dysfunction in avoidant personality disorder.

CONCLUSIONS: Using well-established cut-off points for low, intermediate and high levels of alexithymia we found an almost equal distribution of alexithymia groups in our sample. Alexithymia was associated with higher personality dysfunction on twelve out of sixteen facets of personality functioning. For eight of these personality facets the alexithymia total score explained significant variance even after controlling for self-reported depression, symptom severity and clinician ratings of personality disorder. Results suggest that AvPD is heterogeneous and that alexithymia may be important as an indicator of severity of specific personality dysfunction.
PMID: 33146059 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Nordic Journal of Psychiatry - November 6, 2020 Category: Psychiatry Tags: Nord J Psychiatry Source Type: research