Investigation of the operational thinking/alexitimia and cope strategies on alopecia areata patients

The aim of this study was to investigate operational thinking/alexithymia characteristics and coping attitudes of the patients with alopecia areata (AA). The sample of the study consisted of 12 volunteer patients with alopecia areata (6 of them are women and 6 of them are male). Most of them are being treated in the Department of Dermatology of Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty and the Department of Dermatology of Istanbul University Istanbul Medicine Faculty. The age of the participants varied between the ages of 19-62 and the mean age of the participants was 32,5. Within the scope of the study, socio-demographic information of the participants were taken and psychoanalytically oriented clinical interviews were conducted with the participants in accordance with the research hypotheses and Rorschach test and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) and COPE Inventory were applied. The collected data were assessed with both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The content analysis of the Rorschach test was carried out according to the French School system and the quantitative analysis of the scales used were done by SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). In quantitative data analysis; according to TAS results, a significant portion of the participants showed alexithymic characteristics. When the COPE test is considered under three general headings as problem-oriented, emotion-focused and non-functional coping attitudes; according to the total score averages, the most problem-oriented coping strategies were used by the participants and it was observed that the least non-functional coping strategies were used among the participants. In qualitative data analysis; when the clinical interview findings were examined, some findings indicating operational thinking problems such as deficiencies related to dream capacity, difficulties in giving information about memories, monotonousness in current life and lack of emotion in discourse and lack of imagination about future plans were found. As for coping, it was understood that some participants were insufficient and coping strategies used in general were discussed. In addition, it was observed that a significant majority of the participants focused on pre-disease traumatic experiences. When the discourses about the disease were examined, it was found that patients had generally difficulty in connecting with their inner worlds. In Rorschach test; when the findings related to operational thought were examined, there were deficiencies in the questionnaire responses. This was followed by deficiencies in motion responses and color responses. Generally, the patient group had operational thought/alexithymia characteristics and some patients were insufficient to cope. The results were discussed in the literature. Key Words: Alopecia Areata, Operational thinking, Alexithymia, Rorschach test, Cope