Alexithymia in Schizophrenia: An Exploratory Study

This study assessed a relationship between alexithymia and schizophrenia suggested by reports based on small samples of patients. Here, 50 outpatients with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia were compared with 50 pair-matched healthy subjects. Alexithymia was measured by the Polish version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. The mean total score was significantly higher in the schizophrenia group (M = 52.3, SD = 13.47) than in the healthy controls (M = 45.8, SD = 11.39, p < .02). This replicates earlier findings showing that a group of patients with paranoid schizophrenia have higher scores on alexithymia scales than healthy controls. There seems a need for a comprehensive examination of relations between alexithymia and other concepts denoting pathology of affect in schizophrenia.