Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

Emanuel Vanegas; Miguel Felix; German D Ramon; Orlando López Jove; Edgar Emilio Matos Benavides; Iván Tinoco-Morán; Jonathan A Bernstein; Iván Cherrez-Ojeda

doi:10.1177/2050312120930913

Influence of alexithymia on the management of Latin American patients with asthma: A cross-sectional study

SAGE Open Med. 2020 Jun 7:8:2050312120930913. doi: 10.1177/2050312120930913. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Emanuel Vanegas^{1

2}, Miguel Felix^{1

2}, German D Ramon³, Orlando López Jove⁴, Edgar Emilio Matos Benavides⁵, Iván Tinoco-Morán², Jonathan A Bernstein⁶, Iván Cherrez-Ojeda^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Universidad Espíritu Santo, Samborondón, Ecuador.
² Respiralab Research Group, Guayaquil, Ecuador.
³ Instituto de Alergia e Inmunología del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina.
⁴ Servicio de Neumología Clínica, Hospital Zonal Especializado de Agudos y Crónicos "Dr. Antonio Cetrángolo," Buenos Aires, Argentina.
⁵ Centro De Referencia Nacional de Alergia Asma e Inmunologia-Insn, Lima, Peru.
⁶ Division of Immunology/Allergy Section, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.

Abstract

Objectives: In asthmatic patients, studies suggest that alexithymia leads to negative consequences and emotions that can affect physical, psychological, and social aspects of life. We designed this study to determine the frequency of alexithymia in Latin American patients with asthma, as well as to understand how this personality trait and each of its components interact with asthma severity and demographic variables, and their implications on treatment adherence and disease control under such setting.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study, involving 265 Latin American patients with asthma. Patient demographics and clinical characteristics were reported. The presence of alexithymia, asthma severity, and control, as well as treatment adherence, was analyzed. To assess the presence of alexithymia, the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used. For the statistical analyses, we performed Kendall's tau-b correlation coefficient, chi-square tests for association, and one-way analysis of variance.

Results: A total of 265 patients participated in the study with a gender distribution of 69.4% female and an average age of 54.7 years. In total, 30.2% of individuals presented alexithymia. There was a statistically significant correlation between educational level and 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale categories (p < .001), as well as a higher proportion of severe (35.1%, p = .001) and uncontrolled (50.0%, p = .185) asthma in patients with alexithymia. A higher proportion of patients with some level of non-adherence was seen on those with uncontrolled asthma (68.5%, p = .008).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that in our sample, 3 in 10 Latin American asthma patients have alexithymia, and such mental condition is more common in those individuals with lower educational levels. Individuals with alexithymia present with severe asthma more frequently than do patients with possible or no alexithymia and are also more likely to have their disease uncontrolled.

Keywords: Alexithymia; Latin America; asthma; quality of life; treatment adherence.