The aims of our study are (1) to assess the alexythimia, emotional empathy, facial emotion identification skills and social inference abilities in a sample of ED patients; (2) to compare these variables between ED patients and healthy controls (HC); and (3) to correlate levels of alexithymia with the severity of the ED as measured by the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 (EDI-3) EDRC score in the ED group.
ED (N=42) and HC (N=42) were tested with the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-3), Facial Emotion Identification Test (FEIT), The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) and Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI).
Data collection is being completed and the results’ analysis is ongoing. We expect the ED sample to show greater alexythimia and a poorer performance at FEIT and TASIT than HCs. We expect to find a linear correlation between the TAS-20 and EDRC score.
A better understanding of the role of alexithymia in ED etiology and maintenance might allow the development of targeted treatment approaches to help patients improve their skills in identifying and expressing emotions.