(PS9-A2) The Relationship Between Alexithymia and Help-seeking Behavior in a Psychiatric Sample

Past research suggests that alexithymia (i.e., difficulty identifying/describing feelings, often coupled with externally-oriented thoughts) is a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology and impairs emotion regulation (Hemming et al., 2019; Preece et al., 2022a; Preece et al., 2022b; Prino et al., 2019; Stasiewicz et al., 2012). Additionally, previous research has found that people with higher alexithymia levels have poorer medical and mental health seeking attitudes (Makris, 2020; Sancassiani et al., 2021; Sullivan et al., 2015). However, no existing research has examined how alexithymia relates to help-seeking behavior, which is the current study’s aim. Ninety-two participants were recruited from a psychiatric hospital and enrolled in three weeks of ecological momentary assessment (EMA). The EMA protocol had participants report their momentary alexithymia (i.e., “I am having difficulty making sense of my feelings” [1 to 5 scale]) and the presence of general help-seeking behavior (i.e., “To whom did you speak to about your problems?” [0 = no help-seeking; 1 = any help-seeking]) since the last prompt. Average EMA-based alexithymia scores and the proportion of completed surveys where the participant engaged in help-seeking were calculated for each participant. Average alexithymia scores were not significantly correlated with average help-seeking (r = -0.12, p = 0.27). Limitations include that the study is likely under-powered and that participants’ alexithymia and help-seeking scores were averaged across the study period instead of using their momentary ratings. Further research should examine this question with a larger sample using multi-level modeling to examine the within-person relationship between alexithymia and help-seeking. Additional research should also consider how affective factors (e.g., emotion valence, emotion intensity) may influence the relationship between alexithymia and help-seeking.