ANXIETY IN INDIVIDUALS WITH DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ALEXITHYMIA

The paper aims to investigate the levels of state ad trait anxiety in individuals with different degrees of alexi-thymia. The study involved 208 university students aged 18-45 years. In order to assess the level of state and trait anxiety, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory by Charles Spielberger was used. Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) (adapted by the scientists of St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Research Institute) was applied to study the degree of alexi-thymia. The received data were processed using statistical software Statistica v. 7.0 and SPSS v.13. Student's t-test was used to verify the reliability of the results obtained. On the basis of the correlation analysis of the parameters of alexithymia and anxiety, it was found that alexithymia correlates both with state and trait anxiety. However, the strength of relationships between alexithymia and state anxiety is less (r = 0.27) than that of trait anxiety (r = 0.45). The Student's t-test confirmed the significance of the correlation relationships between alexithymia and the level of state and trait anxiety (P <0.05 and P <0.01 respectively). According to the examination of the mean values of anxiety in people with different degrees of alexithymia, it can be observed that the average indicators, both of state and trait anxiety, have significant differences. Such a pattern is observed in both groups with state (46.8 and 50.5), and trait (38.4 and 49.2) anxiety, though concerning trait anxiety, these differences are more pronounced both in terms of mean values and according to Student's t-test.