Psychometric Properties of the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale in a Group of Italian Younger Adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
Alexithymia is a personality construct that inhibits and interferes with normal affect regulating abilities. The purpose of our study was to assess psychometric properties of TAS-20 in younger adolescents.


METHODS
Data were collected from 508 younger adolescents (48.8% male and 51.2% female) with a mean age of 12.56 years (DS=0.50, range: 12-13 years). We administered the following scales: 20-Item-Toronto Alexithymia Scale.


RESULTS
The confirmatory factor analysis performed on the second random subsample showed reasonable goodness-of-fit for the oblique bi-factorial model: [chi](2) (32, n=254)=54.22; p=0.008; χ(2)/df=1.69; NNFI=0.92; CFI=0.95; SRMR=0.05; RMSEA=0.05; 90% confidence interval=0.027-0.078.


CONCLUSIONS
Based on the outcomes of our research we support the idea of evaluating adolescents for alexithymia.
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University of Enna, Enna, Italy.
Giuseppe
G
Craparo
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, Kore University of Enna, Enna, Italy.
Palmira
P
Faraci
Department of Psychology, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
Alessio
A
Gori
Adolescence; Alexithymia; Factorial model; TAS-20; Validation