ArticleQuality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation2018
The relationship between alexithymia and headache impact: the role of somatization and pain catastrophizing.
Article in Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring the relationship between pain catastrophizing and migraine in youth: A longitudinal clinical cohort study.Headache · 2025Article
- Research on Depression in Children with Severe Bronchial Asthma: The Impact of Alexithymia and Somatic Symptoms.Alpha psychiatry · 2024Article
- Pain Catastrophizing: How Far Have We Come.Neurology international · 2024Review
- Subscales of alexithymia show unique pathways through reappraisal and suppression to anxiety, depression and stress.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Article
- Using exploratory graph analysis (EGA) in validating the structure of the Perth alexithymia questionnaire in Iranians with chronic pain.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Individual Dimensions of Pain Catastrophizing Do Not Mediate the Effect of Sociodemographic and Psychological Factors on Chronic Orofacial Pain Severity, Interference, and Jaw Limitation: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach.The journal of pain · 2023Article
- Psychological Approaches for Migraine Management.Anesthesiology clinics · 2023Review
- Is new daily persistent headache a fallout of somatization? An observational study.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2022Observational
- Alexithymia and pain experience among patients using methadone-maintenance therapy.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2021Article
- Article
- Mapping Assessments Instruments for Headache Disorders against the ICF Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Disability.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThe present study compared psychological factors (i.e., alexithymia, somatization, pain catastrophizing (PC), anxiety, and depression) and QOL for headache patients and headache-free individuals, and examined whether somatization and PC mediate the relationship between alexithymia and headache impact in headache patients.
methodsStudy participants consisted of 123 headache patients from an outpatient clinic at a university hospital and 124 headache-free individuals in Daegu, Korea. The survey employed the somatization and anxiety subscales of the Symptom Checklist-90-revised, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Short-Form Health survey-8 (SF-8), and the Headache Impact Test-6.
resultsHeadache patients showed a higher level of all psychological factors and lower level of two summary scores (physical and mental health) as well as the seven dimensions of the SF-8 compared with headache-free individuals. Examination employing the SPSS Process macro found that the direct effect of alexithymia on headache impact was not significant after controlling for somatization and PC. The total indirect effects of alexithymia on headache impact were significant without anxiety and depression as covariates with the significant indirect effects of alexithymia on headache impact via somatization or via PC as well as via somatization and PC. However, after controlling for anxiety and depression, PC was the only significant pathway through which alexithymia was related to headache impact.
conclusionsHeadache patients may benefit from interventions aiming at improving psychological factors in order to improve the functioning and QOL of headache patients.
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