Toward the Development of a New Self-Report Alexithymia Scale

摘要: Addressing methodological problems in the development of existing scales for measuring alexithymia, this study reports a new self-report scale. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) was devised with concern theoretical congruence alexithymia construct, independence social desirability response bias, and internal consistency. Initially, 41 items were administered to 542 college students. Twenty-six meeting preestablished psychometric guidelines retained. Factor analysis yielded four interpretable factors, all consistent construct. scale demonstrated adequate split-half test-retest reliability, scores not significantly associated age, education, socioeconomic status. These preliminary results suggest that TAS may be used as clinical screening device psychiatric general medical patient populations.