Ricerc@Sapienza

Alcohol use disorders (AUD) are among the most common and undertreated
mental disorders in developed countries. The co-occurrence
of psychiatric comorbidity and AUD has already been well documented.
Moreover, alexithymia was found associated with heavy drinking
and alcohol dependence. A large part of AUD individuals, between
45 and 67%, have been identified as alexithymics. Both psychiatric
comorbidity and alexithymia can negatively impact the course of
recovery from alcohol. Alcohol consumption has also been shown to
significantly influence autonomic responses. Chronic use of alcohol
may induce significant changes in heart rate variability, respiratory
frequency, electrodermal activity and skin temperature. To date, only
a few studies have comprehensively investigated the comorbidity of
alexithymia in AUD individuals with dual diagnosis. Thus, the aim
and also the novelty of the present investigation were to disclose in
individuals with AUD the emotional and cognitive stress responses to
selected physiological parameters measured by ProComp5 Infiniti™
encoder in AUD patients suffering alexithymia with or without concomitant
dual diagnosis. Quite interestingly, in AUD subjects with
concomitant dual diagnosis we found that the alexithymia elevated
skin temperature, heart rate variability and decreased respiratory frequency.
Alexithymia, if associated with the dual diagnosis condition
in AUD individuals, can be considered as a further vulnerability factor
to stressing factors, impacting psychosomatic processing and inducing
alterations in physiological parameters. In this paper, we discuss the
implications of these findings in the early treatment of alexithymic
AUD individuals.