An Association Between Alexithymia and the Characteristics of Sport Practice: A Multicenter, Cross-Sectional Study

Overview

Journal Healthcare (Basel)

Specialty Health Services

Date 2022 Mar 25

PMID 35326910

Authors

Catarina Proenca Lopes

Edem Allado

Mathias Poussel

Aghiles Hamroun

Aziz Essadek

Eliane Albuisson

Bruno Chenuel

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: This was a multicenter, cross-sectional study which aimed to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of sport practice (weekly training duration, level of practice) and alexithymia in adults who were officially licensed at a sports club.

Methods: From a sample of sports club licensed adults, 188 participants were included. The participants completed computerized questionnaires on anthropometric data and characteristics of sport practice (level and weekly time spent on sport practice) as well as alexithymia (TAS 20), depression (BDI-13) and anxiety traits (STAI-Y form B).

Results: In this sample, 91 (48.4%) and 97 (51.6%) athletes engaged in recreational and competitive sport practice, respectively. We observed a prevalence of 31.9% for alexithymia. Moreover, alexithymics were more involved in competitive than recreational practice (40.2% versus 23.1%, respectively; = 0.019) and they were less anxious (63.9% versus 80.2%, respectively; = 0.010). Finally, alexithymia was significantly more pronounced than non-alexithymia among sports competition practitioners (OR: 3.57 (95 CI [1.26-10.08]; = 0.016) and we observed less alexithymia in team sports practice than confrontation sports (OR: 0.20 (95 CI [0.05-0.78]; = 0.020).

Conclusions: Alexithymic athletes were more involved in competition than recreational sports compared to non-alexithymic subjects, whilst there were more alexithymic athletes in confrontation sports than in team sports.

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