Ability to communicate their own feelings in students of Human Physiology evaluated with the TAS 26-items in the year 2018

Abstract

Alexithymia means absence of words to express affection. One of its constituent factors (which refer to the clinical characteristics of the construct) is the difficulty in communicating one's feelings. This difficulty was investigated in university students, in relation to morphological sex, since the literature indicates that the male sex tends to present greater communicational difficulty than the female. 

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability to communicate feelings to other people in a student population differentiated by morphological sex.

An observational, descriptive, cross-sectional analysis was conducted. Population: Human Physiology students in 2018. Sample selection: simple random sampling (n = 80). Instrument: Toronto Alexithymia 26-item Scale (TAS 26-item) that evaluates four factors, presents reliability with a stability coefficient of 0.87, validity (by factor analysis) and cultural adequacy (by translation and adaptation). This study focused on Factor II: ability to communicate one`s own feelings to others, which uses seven items. The scoring range is from 7 to 35, with cut-off points (<12, 12 to 24 and ≥25), based on their relationship with the appearance of psychosomatic disorders and valid criteria according to their clinical implications. Interpretation of results: the higher the score, the greater the difficulty. The scale is valid either totally applied or separately applied on each factor. Contingency charts were made to indicate percentages. Chi2 was applied; p≤0.05. The ability to communicate one's feelings to others in the total sample was: 15% with a score <12, 60% from 12 to 24 and 25% ≥25. In the analysis by sex, the results were: scores lower than 12: 10% -men- and 16.7% -women-; scores from 12 to 24: 70% -men- and 56.6% -women-, p≤0.05; scores ≥25: 20% -men- and 26.7% -women-.

Most of the sample was placed in the midrange of scores. In the same range, men presented more difficulty than women. Awareness of these results should lead to professional interventions that help to reduce the relational problems that this feature entails.