The investigation of the relationship between alexithymia, psychological, behavioral problems and metacognition of a group of 15-17 year old high school students in Istanbul

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between psychological and behavioral problems of 15-17 year old students whose metacognition varies depending on having alexithymic characters. The sample of the research consisted of 592 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders from 5 different high schools located in Üsküdar and Kadıköy in İstanbul. 331 (58,1%) of the participants were female and 239 (41,9%) were male. Accurate information could not been obtained from 22 participants. The data was collected through Demographic Question Form, Toronto Alexithymia Scale with 20 questions (TAS-20), Metacognition Scale Children and Adolescent Form (MS-CA) with Power and Difficulty Survey. Analysis of headt a was made using SPPS v22.0 programme. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, percent were used to analyse the data. Chi- square test was used in the comparison of categorical variables and independent groups T test was used in the comparison of two independent groups. The Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated in the relationship analysis. The relationship between the scales was shown by correlation analysis, and the correlation coefficient was shown as Pearson correlation coefficient. Statistical significance was accepted as p <0.05. According to research findings, there is no significant difference in terms of alexithymia frequency among girls and boys. When alexithymic adolescents and non-alexithymic adolescents are compared, there is no statistically significant difference between the averages of age. Average monthly income of families of alexithymic adolescents are statistically significantly lower than non-alexithymic adolescents. When the meta-cognitive scores of alexithymic adolescents are examined, the negative high anxiety, superstition, criminal and responsibility beliefs and metacognitive problems of alexithymic students are significantly higher than their peers. When GGA scores are examined, total problem scores, attention deficit scores, hyperactivity scores, behavioral and emotional problems scores of alexithymic adolescents are statistically higher than their peers. Social behavior scores that measure positive characteristics are statistically significantly lower. When the results of the correlation analysis are examined, it is found that the relationship between the TAÖ-20 scores and the ÜBÖ-ÇE scores has a positive weak correlation and there is a positive moderate statistically significant correlation between the TAÖ-20 scores and the GGA scores.