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Query: UMLS:C0011570 (depression)
 172,036 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Despite increasing evidence of an association between lower cholesterol levels and negative mood, no study has specifically investigated this relationship in obese people, a population at high risk for both dyslipidaemia and depression. Data on serum cholesterol and mood were collected in a group of 73 healthy women, aged 16 to 76 years, with different degrees of obesity and widely varying total cholesterol concentrations. Mood was assessed using three self-rated scales: the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the State-Trait Anger Scale (STAS), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The association between lower total cholesterol levels and negative mood was age-dependent. No significant association was found in the younger age group (<50 years). In contrast, in the subgroup of older women, serum cholesterol was negatively and significantly correlated with the TAS-20 and the STAS. The negative correlation between serum cholesterol and the BDI was nearly statistically significant. Restricting analysis to the subjects in the highest quartile of the age distribution (>60 years) yielded stronger correlations between cholesterol and mood. In this sample of obese women, the relationship between lower cholesterol levels and negative mood was age-specific and limited to the older age group. The results of this study suggest that preventive programs or drug treatments for reducing cholesterol levels in elderly obese women should include a careful evaluation of mood state.
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PMID:Age specificity of the relationship between serum cholesterol and mood in obese women. 1127 85

The present study assessed the relationship between numbing and three associated conditions of alexithymia, apathy, and depression, utilizing data collected on 353 Vietnam combat veterans diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder from in- and out-patient settings and an outreach center at various Department of Veterans Affairs Medical centers. All subjects completed four self-report measures: the Glover Numbing Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Apathy Evaluation Scale, and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. The correlation matrix indicated that scores on the four measures were moderately to highly correlated. Principal components analysis with a varimax rotation indicated a five-factor solution that provided evidence for the factorial validity of each of the constructs assessed. Results of the factor analysis of items from the four measures were consistent with numbing being a separate and distinct construct from alexithymia, apathy, and depression. In general, results indicated that all constructs measured were separate and distinct from one another.
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PMID:Relationship of numbing to alexithymia, apathy, and depression. 1129 28

Alexithymia characterizes people having important difficulties in putting their feelings and moods into words. Adolescents' depression shows some peculiarities: one of them, which is often observed, is the equal difficulty of imparting one's feelings to others. This research concerns adolescents who attempted suicide. We study classical factors: depression and hopelessness. But our main objective is at first to study the relationship between attempted suicide, depression, hopelessness and alexithymia. The second objective of our study deals with the the prominent part of early schematas in this complex inter-relation. Maladaptative early schematas are no doubt involved in dysfunctional schematas found in depression and hopelessness. As a consequence, we would like to verify the following hypothesis: maladaptative early schematas are very numerous and specific among adolescents who attempted suicide. These schematas are the core of the complex inter-relation between attempted suicide, depression, hopelessness, suicide risk, suicide relapse and alexithymia. We have compared a group of normal subjects (who did not try to take their owns lives) and a group of people who did. First, we have found that the latter are more prone to alexithymia: a large majority of these subjects exceeds by far the accepted norm of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. We have proved that the subjects who have attempted suicide also accumulate maladaptative early schematas. The qualitative analyse of these schematas leads to a possible explanation of the tendency to self destruction. Moreover there are apparently important differences between subjects who, in the past-experienced or did not experience a major depressive episode. The analysis of the relationships between the various factors of our study brings us to the conclusion that there is an unmistakable causal link between maladaptative early schematas and the interactive set (depression-hopelessness-major depressive episode-alexithymia) all these being part of attempted suicide and forming an integrant part of a whole which is the vulnerability to the suicide. Studying the various steps of early schematas seems to be quite promising as far as depression and suicide are concerned.
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PMID:[Early maladaptive processes, depression and alexithymia in suicidal hospitalized adolescents]. 1129 40

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between alexithymia and depression in a general population sample (N = 1,888), as measured by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-21), using factor analysis. The items of the TAS-20 and the BDI-21 loaded on separate factors with only a minor overlap concerning physical worries. However, in a subset of subjects, who were both alexithymic and depressed, loadings were highly overlapping. These findings suggest that alexithymia and depression may be highly associated. Another conclusion might be that psychometric properties of the TAS should be further developed to make differentiation between alexithymia and depression possible.
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PMID:Are alexithymia and depression distinct or overlapping constructs?: a study in a general population. 1134 44

The authors conducted a 12-month follow-up study to determine the association between alexithymia and depression in 116 outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 540 control subjects from the general population. Alexithymia was screened using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and depression was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The results show that the severity of depression was significantly associated with alexithymia. In addition, the BDI scores increased or decreased proportionately with the change in TAS-20 score in both groups. These results lend further support to the idea that alexithymia may be a state-dependent phenomenon.
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PMID:Alexithymia and depression: a prospective study of patients with major depressive disorder. 1135 Nov 11

The purpose of this study was a direct comparative evaluation of alexithymia in patients with somatoform disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression, taking into account the multidimensionality of the alexithymia construct. The authors administered the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to a sample of 234 subjects. Panic disorder, but no other diagnosis, was significantly related to lower TAS-20 total scores (P=0.000). Regarding TAS-20 subfactors, Factor 1 was significantly associated with somatoform disorder (P=0.006) and depression (P=0.002), Factor 2 was significantly associated with depression (P=0.025), and Factor 3 was significantly associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (P=0.001), whereas panic disorder showed a significant negative correlation with Factor 3 (P=0.001). The relationships of the three subfactors with various DSM-IV diagnoses and sociodemographic variables emphasize the multidimensionality of alexithymia.
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PMID:Alexithymia in DSM-IV disorder: comparative evaluation of somatoform disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression. 1135 Nov 12

According to attachment theorists, affect regulation and quality of attachment are closely linked. As a personality trait associated with deficits in the cognitive processing and regulation of affects, alexithymia has been hypothesized to correlate with insecure attachment. To test this hypothesis, we studied the relationships between alexithymia, adult attachment style, and retrospective memories of separation anxiety symptoms during childhood in 100 young men with clinically significant mood symptoms. The most common DSM-IV diagnosis (N = 72) was adjustment disorder with depressed mood, with anxiety, or with mixed anxiety and depressed mood. Each participant completed the Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the state form of the State-Trait Anxiety Index (STAI), the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ), the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ), and the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI). Alexithymic traits were more pronounced in those participants who had patterns of insecure attachment and who reported more severe symptoms of separation anxiety during childhood, independently of the severity of their current anxiety and depressive symptoms. Among the subgroup of participants with insecure attachment styles, those with preoccupied or fearful patterns had a higher prevalence of alexithymia (65% and 73%, respectively) than those with a dismissing pattern (36%). These data suggest a role for early developmental factors in the etiology of alexithymia
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PMID:Insecure attachment and alexithymia in young men with mood symptoms. 1137 75

The authors examined the association between alexithymia, cluster C personality disorders (CPD), and severity of depression among 121 outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) in a 6-month, follow-up study. Diagnosis of depression and CPD was confirmed by means of the Structured Clinical Interviews for DSM-III-R (SCID I and SCID II). Alexithymia was screened using the 20-item version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and severity of depression was assessed using the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory. Results indicated that alexithymic features are common in patients with MDD but often alleviated during recovery from depression. Moreover, comorbid CPD and severity of depression seemed to be associated with poorer recovery from alexithymia. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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PMID:Alexithymia in patients with major depressive disorder and comorbid cluster C personality disorders: a 6-month follow-up study. 1140 96

Is shame out of fashion? The first part of this article discusses how the concept of shame has changed in modern western culture, with a shift from collective definitions of norms towards personal experience. The second part is a phenomenological description of shame and how shame can be expressed and experienced in therapeutic relationships. Shame is something we do want, and something we do not want. It regulates both self-esteem and intimate relationships. It protects the psychological self from invasion. But too much shame is destructive. The main expression of deep shame is silence; it is shameful to speak about one's shame. But deep and pathological shame can be masked in other forms of presentation, "the voices of shame". In addition to silence the article describes "the psychopathology of normalcy", hesitation, depression, alexithymia, rage, envy, contempt, grandiosity and shamelessness. Finally, the article discusses how to escape from destructive feelings of shame.
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PMID:[Voice of shame--silence, eloquence and rage in the therapeutic relationship]. 1144 50

We investigated the prevalence of alexithymic features and other psychometric correlates in patients diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder in a military hospital setting. Forty soldiers diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder in a general military hospital and 50 normal soldiers with no known medical or psychiatric disorder were assessed by sociodemographic data form, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS)-26 items, the Beck Depression Scale, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Antisocial patients showed significantly higher rates of unemployment, lower educational and socioeconomic status, higher rates of self mutilation, previous suicide attempts, substance abuse, history of incarceration and broken family bonds. The patient group also displayed significantly higher scores on alexithymia, depression, hopelessness and general psychological distress measures. Alexithymia was not associated with other psychological measures but was associated with socioeconomic and educational status. The failure in the socialization process of these patients may pave the way for an inability to identify and communicate their feelings. To draw a more definitive conclusion on this issue, a study which recruits ASPD patients from the community and compares them with a sociodemographically matched patient control group is necessary.
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PMID:Alexithymia in patients with antisocial personality disorder in a military hospital setting. 1147 19


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