The Characteristics Of Depressive Symptoms And Its Related To Alexithymia Features In Depressive Patients

Objective:(1) The characteristics of the alexithymia were investigated from the patients with depressive disorder with different genders, hometowns, age groups, education levels.(2) The relationship of the depressive patients’clinic symptoms and alexithymia manners were studied from the theory and case.Method:The307patients who conformed to the core symptoms of depressive episodes of DSM-IV were collected from divisions of clinic psychology in Changsha city and Huaihua city. The control group included351people who were the families of patients constituted. The Structured Clinical Interview was used to assess the patients’clinic symptoms. In order to assess the depressive symptoms for both patients and the control groups, CES-D(Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale) was used. And the TAS-20(Toronto Alexithymia Scale)was used to assess the alexithymia manners for both patients and the control groups.Result:(1) It is distinct different of the total scores to the depressive mood, somatization, positive mood and interpersonal relationship from the CES-D between the two groups. The scores of depressive group were higherthan the control group (P<0.01).(2) There was significant gender difference in the symptom of depression, that the scores in male patients were much lower(P<0.01). To the educational levels, the patients showed great diversity in depressive mood, somatization, and the total scores of the CES-D, that patients who just have primary schooling were more depressive than others(P<0.05). It was no significant difference in depressive symptom between patients in different ages and hometowns (P>0.05) from statistic.(3) There were significant differences in the scores of the TAS-20and the scores of the emotional comprehension diffculty, emotional discription difficulty, externally oriented thinking between two groups, the scores in depressive group were higher (P<0.01).(4) There were significant relations was between the total scores of CES-D and scores of emotional comprehension difficulty, emotional discription difficulty and the total scores of TAS-20in depressive group, P<0.05. The symptoms of depression and emotional comprehension diffculty, emotional discription difficulty, externally oriented thinking and the total scores of TAS-20were significant related P<0.05. To the somatization, it had significant relations with emotional comprehension difficulty, emotional discription difficulty, externally oriented thinking and the total scores of TAS-20, P<0.05. Positive mood was significant related with externally oriented thinking P<0.05. And the symptoms of interpersonal difficulties was significant related with the total scores of TAS-20, P<0.05.Conclusion:(1) There is gender and cultural differences in the severity of depression as well as the symptoms inthe depressive patients.(2) The depressive patients showed more pronounced alexithymia(3)The clinic symptoms of depressive patientswere related with alexithymia, depressive patients with higher alexithymia showed higher level of depression, especially in the Somatic symptoms.