Alexithymia and its Relationship with Grafted Organ Function and Quality of Life in Liver Transplant Recipients in Tabriz Educational Hospitals in 2020

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: After receiving transplanted organ, patients experience various mental and psychological problems, having problems in accepting an organ in their body and also adapting to transplantation problems, which causes emotional and emotional insufficiency and affect transplanted organ function, As well as their quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the alexithymia and its relationship with organ function and quality of life (QOL) in liver recipients in Tabriz educational and medical centers. Methods: This is a descriptive-correlational study conducted in 2020 with the participation of 123 liver transplant recipients in Tabriz educational-medical centers (Imam Reza and relevant doctors' offices) which they were selected by available sampling method. In this study, demographic characteristics check list, Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS-20), and SF36 quality of life questionnaire were used to collect data. After explaining the objectives of the study and obtaining informed consent from patients, these questionnaires were provided to them and they were asked to complete them. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software version 22 and descriptive statistics (percentage, frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analysis). Significance level was considered less than 0.05 for all statistical tests. Results: The mean age of patients participating in this study was 45.35 ± 13.25. The majority of participants were male (52%), married (78.9%), with a diploma (29.3%), Azeri (95.9%), Muslim (100%), and Shiite (9.9%), had no history of mental illness (91.9%), lived in the center of the province (61.8%) and had no history of psychiatric medication use (93.5%). The mean and standard deviation of alexithymia and total QOL were 55.9 ± 13.35 (from the range of 20-100) and 67.95 ± 19.08 (from the range of 0-800), respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient test showed that there was a significant negative correlation between the mean score of alexithymia (r = -0.501, p <0.001), the component of difficulty in identifying emotions (r = -0.473, p <0.001), and difficulty in describing emotions (r = -0.449, p <0.001) with the total QOL. No significant relationship was found between the mean score of objective thinking and the total score of QOL and its components (p <0.05). The results showed that there wasn’t a statistically significant relationship between alexithymia and liver function (excluding INR, r = 0.239, p = 0.026) in patients participating in the present study (p <0.05). The regression analysis results showed that alexithymia (p < 0.001) and age (p=0.016) significantly predicts QOL, So that for one unit increase in the independent variables of alexithymia and age, the dependent variable of QOL decreases by 6.09 and 2.45 units, respectively. Conclusion: These results indicate the fact that liver transplant had moderate levels of alexithymia and QOL. In addition, the results of the study showed that there is a significant negative relationship between the mean score of alexithymia and QOL of transplant recipients.