Latent classes of alexithymia in college students and depressive symptoms, social interaction anxiety / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To identify the potential categories of alexithymia in college students, and further analyze the relationship between different potential categories and social anxiety and depression, so as to provide theoretical basis for promoting the development of positive emotions and mental health of college.@*Methods@#A cross sectional survey was conducted among 1 338 students randomly selected from a cluster of four universities in Hebei, Jilin, Liaoning Provinces in September 2020 by convenience sampling method. Chinese Version of Twenty item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Social Interaction Anxiety Scale, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression were used for survey, potential profile analysis and Logistic regression analysis were performed on the data.@*Results@#College students with alexithymia could be divided into three potential categoriesgood emotion expression group( 33.3 %), good emotion discrimination group(9.6%), and difficulty in emotion expression group(57.1%). Logistic regression analysis showed that after controlling for demographic variables, the group with good emotional expression was negatively correlated with depression symptoms ( β =-1.92,-1.44, P <0.01), and social anxiety ( β =-0.71,-2.04, P <0.01).@*Conclusion@#Alexithymia of college students shows a category distribution, and each potential category of alexithymia has different associations with social anxiety and depression symptoms. To improve the mental health, teachers in colleges and universities in the mental health education work to develop targeted training of emotional regulation ability of college students to formulate intervention programs, relieve the symptoms of social anxiety and depression of college students, promote their positive psychological development.