Objective: This study aimed to put forward the relationship between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) treatment and alexithymia in patients with Major depressive disorder, prospectively.
Methods: We included randomized 60 volunteers, who were referred to Psychiatry outpatient clinic of Akdeniz University Hospital, between ages 18-65, with the diagnosis of major depressive disorder and they were initiated SSRI treatment for the first-time and they responded to SSRI treatment. Cases were investigated by SCID-I affective episode module diagnosis and exclusion criterion. Sociodemographic data sheet, Hamilton depression scale, Beck depression inventory, positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) were applied. Patients were evaluated again after 8 weeks.
Results: We found that 60% patients are alexithymic. There was no relationship between sociodemographic datas and alexithymia. Alexythimic patients had significantly higher scores than non-alexythymics in Beck depression and Hamilton depression scales. Alexithymics had higher aggression levels. We found that 66.7% of patients were alexithymic after 8 weeks and there is not a significant difference between the first and the last assessments. We found significant improvement in positive and negative emotion levels. The average changes of positive emotion levels was 5,5 and 16,5 for negative emotion levels average from baseline. Improvement in negative emotions was higher than the one in positive emotions, significantly. There was significant reduction in aggression scores.
Conclusions: As a result of SSRI treatment average apathetic responses found in this study were similar to the literature data. We concluded that SSRI treatment could contribute to alexithymia in these patients.