Are Macedonian chronic patients alexithymic?

Psychological factors have been supposed as an important link in the chain of pathogenesis and the course of many diseases, especially stress-related ones. The field of psychosomatics is concerned with the study of the mind / body relations and, in this context, to the assessment of the influence of psychological factors on bodily changes and, consequently, with the development of illness. Alexithymia, the inability to identify or label emotions, has been shown to be associated with patients with many chronic conditions. The study was performed to obtain a) normal values of TAS-20 in Macedonian healthy people and b) to compare the results with a groups of chronic patients. In this study, TAS-20 was applied as a measure of alexithymia. It was concluded that the alexithymia construct is a permanent personality trait related to neurobiological brain specifics. The construct is important for both, either as a trigger or as the conesquence of the illness. Patients with chronic diseases are more alexithymic than healthy people. In our research alexithymia has been confirmed in patients with cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and dialyzed patients as well as in patients after myocardial infarction. An alexithymia construct can influence the prognosis and outcome of the chronic disease. Anyhow, the psychological support for mediating alexithymia should be included in the therapeutic protocols of all chronic patients.