title: Alexithymia and global psychosocial functioning: a study on patients with skin disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The relationship between alexithymia and psychosocial functioning has been investigated in a few studies using indirect measures of adaptation. We aimed at directly evaluating the relationship between alexithymia and global psychosocial functioning, as measured by a standardised scale.
  
  
  METHODS
  A large, consecutive sample of dermatological inpatients (N=545) completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Skindex-29 and were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition Axis I disorders and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multiple regression analysis was used to control for likely determinants of psychosocial functioning such as age, sex, education, burden of skin symptoms, and psychiatric morbidity. The GAF score was associated with psychiatric morbidity (beta=-.63, P<.001), alexithymia (in particular, the difficulty identifying feelings subscale) (beta=-.19, P<.001), and burden of skin symptoms (beta=-.07, P<.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Given the well-known association between poor psychosocial functioning and several behavioural risk factors for health, our study may provide a further reason for clinicians to pay attention to alexithymic features among their patients.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Dermatological Institute IDI-IRCCS, Rome, Italy. a.picardi@idi.it <a.picardi@idi.it>
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Picardi
authors.forename: Piero
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Porcelli
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mazzotti
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fassone
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lega
authors.forename: Luisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ramieri
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Sagoni
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pasquini
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003880:Dermatology / Q000379:methods; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D011584:Psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012871:Skin Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires