Abstract
BackgroundPrison is an extremely stressful environment and prisoners have an increasing risk of suffering from alexithymia. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the prevalence and associated factors of alexithymia among prisoners in China.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in five main jails of the district of Zhejiang province in China, and a total of 1705 adult prisoners ultimately took part in the study. Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Hopelessness Scale and several short demographic questions were applied.ResultsOver 30% of prisoners were classified as alexithymics and as high as 96.2% of prisoners suffered from at least one traumatic experience in their childhood, meanwhile, 81.5%, 53.4% and 85.8% were found to be positive for depression, anxiety and hopelessness symptoms respectively. Education, childhood trauma, negative emotional symptoms including depression, anxiety and hopelessness of the respondents, were negatively or positively associated with alexithymia among prisoners.ConclusionsThe results indicated that high prevalence of alexithymia among prisoners is linked with their level of education, experience of childhood trauma and symptoms of negative emotions. Accordingly, the findings in our study can be used for prevention and intervention of alexithymia among prisoners.
Highlights
Prison is an extremely stressful environment and prisoners have an increasing risk of suffering from alexithymia
Prevalence of alexithymia among the prisoners In general, out of 1705 adult prisoners, over one thirds of the respondents (31.4%, 95% confidence intervals (95% CI):30.3–32.5%) were classified as alexithymics (M = 66.17, SD = 4.49)
In order to determine whether prisoners are at a higher risk of more severe alexithymia compared with the adult norm in China, independent t-tests were conducted on the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) total score and subscales scores
Summary
Prison is an extremely stressful environment and prisoners have an increasing risk of suffering from alexithymia. Chen et al BMC Psychiatry (2017) 17:287 including severe physical illnesses, such as coronary heart disease [8,9,10], hypertension [11, 12], diabetes [13,14,15,16,17] and psoriasis [18,19,20], or some psychiatric illnesses, such as eating disorders [21,22,23,24], autism spectrum disorders [25,26,27,28], panic disorder [29,30,31,32,33,34] and post-traumatic stress disorder [35,36,37] These studies have significantly advanced current knowledge concerning the prevalence of alexithymia among different patients who are suffering from stress, and have motivated new important research questions. Could these mental problems be strong risk factors for alexithymia among prisoners? Based on the above analysis, our study seeks to go beyond existing studies to further examine the prevalence and severity of alexithymia among prisoners by making the following two specific efforts
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
