Table 4.

Measurement of alexithymia in patients with alopecia areata

AA study population	N	COA tool	Score (mean ± SD)a	References
Adults age 18–60 years; 92% with patchy AA, 8% with AT; 52% were women	50	TAS-20	56.1 ± 14.4; 42% scored positive for alexithymia	Sellami et al. 2014 [33]
Adults age > 18 years: Severity not reported; 67% were men	30	TAS-20	59.1 ± 11.5; 50% scored positive for alexithymia	Dehghani et al. 2017 [14]
Adults age ≥ 18 years: Severity not reported; 84% were women	90	TAS-20	51.2 ± 11.9; 23% had high score (> 61) and 23% borderline score (51–61)	Willemsen et al. 2009 [38]
Adults age 18–70 years; 33% with patchy AA, 14% ophiasis, 29% AT, 24% AU; 76% were women	21	TAS-20	50.1 ± 11.3	Willemsen et al. 2011 [39]
Age, gender, severity not reported	30	TAS-26	71.2 ± 12.8b; > 30% were considered to have alexithymia	Kuty-Pachecka and Stefanska 2014 [21]
			Controls: 60.1 ± 13.6; 8% were considered to have alexithymia

TAS Toronto Alexithymia Scale

^aTotal possible scores: TAS-20: 20 items scored on Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); range 20–100; scores > 61 considered alexithymic; scores < 51 considered non-alexithymic; and scores 51–61 considered borderline alexithymic. [38]; TAS-26: 26 items scored on scored on a Likert scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); range 26–130; scores ≥ 74 considered alexithymic and scores ≤ 62 considered non-alexithymic. [55]

^bScore was significantly higher than controls