title: Alexithymia and grief reactions in bereaved Japanese women.
abstract: To examine the relationship between grief reactions and alexithymia, 54 Japanese women (33 outpatients attending a psychosomatic clinic and 21 normal healthy participants) completed the Texas Inventory of Grief (TIG), the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and the Profile of Mood States (POMS). Each woman had experienced the death of a spouse or a first-degree relative. The TIG scores were positively correlated to the scores on the first TAS-20 factor of Difficulty Identifying Feelings and on the POMS tension-anxiety and depression scales. The scores on the first TAS-20 factor were higher in the psychosomatic group than in the normal group. Complicated grief reactions may be closely associated with both alexithymic character and mood states in bereaved Japanese women.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, Teikyo University Hospital, and Department of Hygiene and Public Health, School of Medicine, Teikyo University, Tokyo, Japan. mnakao@med.teikyo-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Mutsuhiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakao
authors.forename: Masayo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kashiwagi
authors.forename: Eiji
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yano
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety; D003863:Depression; D005260:Female; D006117:Grief; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires