Comparison between anticipatory effect of Alexithymia and Emotion regulation Difficulties (disorder) on language impairment in Schizophrenia patients.

Background & Objective: Schizophrenia is one of the most fundamental challenges related to mental health. Linguistic disorganization and dysregulation are considered the main symptoms of schizophrenia diagnosis. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the anticipatory effect of alexithymia and emotional-dysregulation disorder on language disorders in schizophrenic patients. Material & Methods: This is a descriptive and analytic study in cross-sectional correlation method. Sample groups are from 81 patients who were selected using purposive sampling method. They are all psychotic patients that were hospitalized at the Razi psychiatric hospital of Tehran, and they are educated as high as high-school diploma in 2016. Participants completed the following questionnaires: Toronto Alexithymia-Scale (TAS-20), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation-Scale (DERS) and the Farsi Aphasia-Test (Nilipoor). The collected data were analyzed using inferential statistics of regression analyzing data, multivariate analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient through SPSS-22. Results: Results showed that the variable of alexithymia had a stronger anticipatory role in language impairments than the variable of emotional regulation among schizophrenic patients (P<0/01) was observed between these two variables and language impairments. The Results of regression analysis of these two on the subscales of language impairments showed that these variables (respectively) had the highest impact on improvised-conversation and listening-comprehension and the lowest impact on oral-expression. Also it could be concluded that about 19% of language impairments&rsquo; variance could be predicted by two variables of alexithymia and emotional dysregulation. Conclusion: Results of this study showed that alexithymia and emotional dysregulation disorder could be important psychological factors for predicting schizophrenia. &nbsp;