Is Alexithymia a Permanent Feature in Depressed Patients?: Results from a 6-Month Follow-Up Study

A six-month follow-up study was conducted to determine whether alexithymia is a permanent feature in 169 depressed outpatients. Diagnosis of depression was confirmed by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-I). Alexithymia was screened using the 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and severity of depression was assessed using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Almost 40% of the patients were considered alexithymic at baseline, but only 23% at follow-up. Alexithymic patients were more often moderately or severely depressed than other patients in both study phases. The BDI scores explained 23% (at baseline) and 42% (at follow-up) of the variation in TAS-20 scores. The decrease in the TAS-20 scores was associated with a concurrent decrease in BDI scores. Alexithymic patients with depressive disorders do not appear to form a stable group. On the contrary, alexithymia seems to change as a function of depression. In the light of these results, alexithymia appears not to be a stable personality trait among depressed patients, and furthermore, it seems possible that alexithymic features respond to psychiatric treatment.