The role of alexithymia in the mental health problems of home-quarantined university students during the COVID-19 pandemic in China
Open accessAbstract
Objective While it is well known that mental health problems are common consequences of deadly pandemics, the association with alexithymia is less clear. This study examined this association in an evaluation of home-quarantined university students during the 2019/2020 COVID-19 pandemic in China. Methods In total, 2501 home-quarantined students from six southwest Chinese universities completed the following questionnaires: the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C), and the Patients Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), after which structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analyses were employed to extract and evaluate the possible associations. Results It was found that participants with probable depression or PTSD also reported more severe alexithymia features, such as difficulties in identifying feelings (DIF) or describing feelings (DDF). Alexithymia was also found to partially mediate the effect of number of exposures on mental health problems. Conclusion These results suggested that implementing strategies to assist young people identify and deal with their own emotions and those of others could prevent or mitigate the mental health problems associated with deadly pandemic events. However, future longitudinal studies are needed to examine the specific involvement of DIF or DDF in people with mental health problems.
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Experiential avoidance could be associated with individual responses to cope with COVID-19.
“avoidance, or the active avoidance of private experiences such as feelings, memories, and thoughts, could widely be associated with individual responses to cope with COVID-19 [41, 47, 48, 81].”
From Psychological correlates of perceived loneliness in college students before and during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period: a longitudinal study (2023) · cites this paper as [47]
The Discussion (page unavailable) suggests that home-quarantined students may cope with COVID-19-related fear by suppressing or distancing themselves from their emotions. That supports an emotional-avoidance coping link, but the paper discusses alexithymia rather than experiential avoidance as a broader construct and does not establish avoidance of memories or thoughts across individuals generally. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredChinese home-quarantined university students during the COVID-19 pandemic with probable depression or post-traumatic stress disorder reported more severe signs of alexithymia.
“Chinese home-quarantined university students during the COVID-19 pandemic with probable depression or post-traumatic stress disorder reported more severe signs of alexithymia [47]”
From Psychological correlates of perceived loneliness in college students before and during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period: a longitudinal study (2023) · cites this paper as [47]
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References 85 · Cited by 128
Research works printed but not linked: 6
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- Culhane S.E. Watson P. Alexithymia, irrational beliefs, and the rational-emotive explanation of emotional disturbance Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy 21 2003 57 72
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- Siyu C. Xia M. Wen W. Cui L. Yang W. Liu S. … Tang B. Mental health status and coping strategy of medical workers in China during the COVID-19 outbreak 2020 (medRxiv)
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- Authors
- Tang, W., Hu, T., Yang, L., & Xu, J.
- Affiliations
- Sichuan University (CN)
- Chengdu Normal University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Xu, Jiuping
- Venue
- Personality and Individual Differences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-10
- Volume
- 165
- Pages
- 110131
- ISSN
- 0191-8869 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7273169
- OpenAlex
- W3033670349
- Cited by
- 128
- References
- 85
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 18.24
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Personality and Individual Differences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- alexithymia, COVID-19 pandemic, home quarantine, university students, mental illness, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, emotional awareness, emotional identification, emotional description, emotion regulation
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