Assessing alexithymia in adolescents: Psychometric properties of the Perth alexithymia questionnaire in high school students

Authors

Annette C. Trimble, Edith Cowan University
Ken Robinson, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
David A. Preece

Author Identifier

Annette Trimble

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3659-806X

Ken Robinson

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6904-0279

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

Australian Psychologist

Volume

59

Issue

5

First Page

422

Last Page

434

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

School

School of Arts and Humanities

Funders

Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment

Comments

Trimble, A. C., Robinson, K., & Preece, D. A. (2024). Assessing alexithymia in adolescents: Psychometric properties of the Perth alexithymia questionnaire in high school students. Australian Psychologist, 59(5), 422-434. https://doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2023.2285513

Abstract

Conceptually, alexithymia is a key transdiagnostic risk factor for the development of numerous psychopathologies across the lifespan. However, to date, most alexithymia research has focused on adults, with adolescent work limited by a lack of validated age-appropriate assessment tools. Recently, the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) was introduced to enhance the comprehensiveness of alexithymia assessments, but its psychometric properties have only been tested in adults. In this study, we address this by examining the psychometric properties of the PAQ in a sample of English-speaking high school students (N = 225, aged 11 to 18), and use the PAQ to further establish the structure of the alexithymia construct in adolescents. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that all PAQ items conformed well to the expected factor structure, supporting that the PAQ was measuring a coherent multidimensional construct, consistent with the attention-appraisal model of alexithymia. All subscale and composite scores had good to excellent internal consistency (a range =.83 to.95) and correlated in expected ways with other emotion measures. Together, these findings suggest that the multidimensional structure of the alexithymia construct manifests similarly in adolescents and adults, and that the PAQ is a valid and reliable measure of alexithymia in adolescents.

DOI

10.1080/00050067.2023.2285513

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.