Psychiatric Department, Hospital Santa Maria/Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon, Portugal.
Psychol Health Med. 2011 Mar;16(2):215-24. doi: 10.1080/13548506.2010.525657.
Alexithymia has been described as an important dimension in several medical and psychiatric diseases. Chronic urticaria (CU) is a chronic condition, in which treatment is difficult. Our aim is to determine the prevalence of alexithymia traits in patients with CU, and to identify the relationships between alexithymia and psychological variables and quality-of-life dimensions. Fifty-five sequential CU patients in a faculty ambulatory specialized consultation, with an average age of 44.92, were compared with 31 healthy volunteers. Both groups were studied by means of validated scales for alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale [TAS-20]), attachment (Adult Attachment Scale-R [AAS-R]), psychopathology (Brief Symptom Inventory [BSI]), personality dimensions (The NEO Five-Factor inventory [NEO-FFI]) and quality of life (Short Form-36 [SF-36]). The classification of CU reactions was obtained from the patient's history, physical examination, laboratory assessment and histopathologic findings. All the patients were under treatment with sedating H1-antihistamines, non-sedating H1-antihistamines combination of H1 and H2 blocker, 2 H1-antihistamines and 3 H1-antihistamines. High traits of alexithymia were found on CU patients (56.9%) as well as high symptom rates of anxiety. Alexithymia traits were significantly positively correlated with insecure attachment styles, with psychopathological symptoms, and with the defense mechanism turn against self. We also reported a significant negative correlation between alexithymia traits and the dimensions of quality of life. Insecure attachment styles were positively correlated with psychopathological symptoms and negatively correlated with quality of life. We did not find significant statistical correlations between alexithymia and clinical variables. CU patients present serious difficulty in dealing with emotion arousal. There is strong evidence of a psychosomatic specificity in CU, with marked alexithymic traits.
述情障碍在多种医学和精神疾病中被描述为一个重要维度。慢性荨麻疹（CU）是一种慢性疾病，治疗困难。我们的目的是确定 CU 患者述情障碍特征的患病率，并确定述情障碍与心理变量和生活质量维度之间的关系。在一个大学门诊专科门诊中，对 55 例连续的 CU 患者（平均年龄 44.92 岁）进行了研究，并与 31 名健康志愿者进行了比较。两组均采用多伦多述情障碍量表（TAS-20）、依恋（成人依恋量表-R [AAS-R]）、精神病理学（简明症状量表 [BSI]）、人格维度（NEO 五因素量表 [NEO-FFI]）和生活质量（36 项简短健康调查量表 [SF-36]）进行了研究。CU 反应的分类是根据患者的病史、体检、实验室评估和组织病理学发现获得的。所有患者均接受镇静 H1 抗组胺药、非镇静 H1 抗组胺药联合 H1 和 H2 阻滞剂、2 种 H1 抗组胺药和 3 种 H1 抗组胺药治疗。CU 患者表现出明显的高述情障碍特征（56.9%）和较高的焦虑症状发生率。述情障碍特征与不安全的依恋方式、精神病理学症状以及自我防御机制转向显著正相关。我们还报告述情障碍特征与生活质量维度之间存在显著负相关。不安全的依恋方式与精神病理学症状呈正相关，与生活质量呈负相关。我们没有发现述情障碍与临床变量之间存在显著的统计相关性。CU 患者在处理情绪唤醒方面存在严重困难。CU 具有明显的述情障碍特征，具有明显的身心特异性。
