Tsubaki Kanako, Shimizu Eiji
Research Center for Child Mental Development, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8670, Japan.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2024 Dec 7;14(12):1173. doi: 10.3390/bs14121173.
Alexithymia, a psychological condition characterized by emotional suppression, is positively correlated with depression and anxiety and can develop into various mental disorders. Although alexithymia affects 10% of the symptomatic population and 25% of psychiatric patients, there has been a paucity of intervention studies. Even though several effective psychological treatments, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), have been tested in recent years, there is a lack of comprehensive reviews on their efficacy. The objectives of this systematic review were to explore and synthesize findings from recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about psychological treatments, with the following inclusion criteria: (1) published from 2010 to 2024; (2) full text being available in English; (3) peer-reviewed journals; and (4) baselines and outcomes measured by TAS-20 and raw data were provided. We excluded non-psychological studies and studies involving mindfulness and DBT. We searched electronic databases (PubMed, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar) and found 18 RCTs and 21 arms for alexithymia, with a combined total of 1251 participants. Fourteen arms (67%) investigated the effect of CBT on alexithymia, including acceptance and commitment therapy (seven arms), behavioral activation therapy (two arms), schema therapy, and compassion-focused therapy. The results indicated that most psychological interventions significantly decreased TAS-20, illustrating a showcase of treatments from each trial with different effect sizes (within-intervention group, ranging from 0.41 to 13.25). However, due to the heterogeneity between the studies, this review study may not be conclusive enough to make each intervention standardized. Further high-quality RCTs with larger sample sizes and more consistent methodologies are needed, and corrective findings from such studies should be applied to produce more robust evidence-based psychological interventions for treating alexithymia.
述情障碍是一种以情绪抑制为特征的心理状态，与抑郁和焦虑呈正相关，并可能发展为各种精神障碍。尽管述情障碍影响了10%的有症状人群和25%的精神科患者，但干预研究却很少。尽管近年来已经测试了几种有效的心理治疗方法，包括认知行为疗法（CBT），但缺乏对其疗效的综合评价。本系统评价的目的是探索和综合近期关于心理治疗的随机对照试验（RCT）的结果，纳入标准如下：（1）2010年至2024年发表；（2）全文为英文；（3）同行评审期刊；（4）提供了用多伦多述情障碍量表（TAS-20）测量的基线和结果以及原始数据。我们排除了非心理研究以及涉及正念和辩证行为疗法（DBT）的研究。我们检索了电子数据库（PubMed、PsycInfo和谷歌学术），发现了18项针对述情障碍的RCT和21个研究组，共有1251名参与者。14个研究组（67%）调查了CBT对述情障碍的影响，包括接受与承诺疗法（7个研究组）、行为激活疗法（2个研究组）、图式疗法和以同情为中心的疗法。结果表明，大多数心理干预措施显著降低了TAS-20，展示了每个试验中不同效应大小（干预组内，范围从0.41到13.25）的治疗效果。然而，由于研究之间的异质性，本综述研究可能不足以得出结论，使每种干预措施标准化。需要进一步开展样本量更大、方法更一致的高质量RCT，并且应应用此类研究的校正结果，以产生更有力的循证心理干预措施来治疗述情障碍。
