Prevalence and Relationships between Alexithymia, Anhedonia, Depression and Anxiety during the Belgian COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Farah Damerdji, Marianne Rotsaert, Benjamin Wacquier, Matthieu Hein and Gwenolé Loas ()
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Farah Damerdji: Department of Psychiatry & Laboratory of Psychiatric Research (ULB 266), Cliniques Universitaires de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Marianne Rotsaert: Department of Psychology & Laboratory of Psychiatric Research (ULB 266), Cliniques Universitaires de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Benjamin Wacquier: Department of Psychiatry & Laboratory of Psychiatric Research (ULB 266), Cliniques Universitaires de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Matthieu Hein: Department of Psychiatry & Laboratory of Psychiatric Research (ULB 266), Cliniques Universitaires de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium
Gwenolé Loas: Department of Psychiatry & Laboratory of Psychiatric Research (ULB 266), Cliniques Universitaires de Bruxelles, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 1070 Brussels, Belgium

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-9

Abstract: Alexithymia and anhedonia are associated with psychiatric disorders, such as depression and anxiety. The COVID-19 pandemic lead to a significant deterioration in the mental health of the population. It is therefore important to examine the effects of lockdown on alexithymia and anhedonia and their relationships with anxiety and depression. We compared the scores and characteristics of 286 patients divided into two groups: one before lockdown (group 1, N = 127), the other during the progressive lockdown release (group 2, N = 159). The groups were homogeneous in terms of age, sex ratio, socio-professional categories, and somatic and psychiatric comorbidities. The groups were compared on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) measuring alexithymia, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) measuring depression, the anhedonia subscale of the BDI-II measuring state-anhedonia and the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) measuring state and trait anxiety. The ratio of alexithymic subjects in group 1 is 22.83% to 33.33% in group 2 ( p -value = 0.034). This suggests a significant increase in the number of alexithymic patients after lockdown. We did not observe any difference in the proportion of depressed and anxious subjects before or after lockdown. Among the different scales, higher scores were only found on the cognitive factor of alexithymia on group 2 comparatively to group 1. This study indicates an increase in the proportion of alexithymic subjects following lockdown. Unexpectedly, this was unrelated to depression, anxiety or anhedonia levels, which remained stable. Further studies are needed to confirm this result and to evaluate precisely which factors related to the lockdown context are responsible for such an increase.

Keywords: alexithymia; anhedonia; state anhedonia; depression; anxiety; lockdown; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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