The Mediating Effect of Alexithymia on the Relationship between Attachment and Depression in Early Adulthood

Minji Gil; Suk-Sun Kim

doi:10.12934/jkpmhn.2019.28.2.124

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Gil and Kim: The Mediating Effect of Alexithymia on the Relationship between Attachment and Depression in Early Adulthood

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 2019; 28(2): 124-132.

Published online: 28 June 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12934/jkpmhn.2019.28.2.124

The Mediating Effect of Alexithymia on the Relationship between Attachment and Depression in Early Adulthood

Minji Gil¹

, Suk-Sun Kim²

¹Doctoral Student, Graduate School, Division of Nursing Science, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.

²Associate Professor, College of Nursing, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Kim, Suk-Sun. College of Nursing, Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03760, Korea. Tel: +82-2-3277-2885, Fax: +82-2-3277-2850, suksunkim@ewha.ac.kr

Received 14 March 2019 Revised 3 May 2019 Accepted 5 June 2019

The Korean Academy of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of alexithmia on the relationship between attachment and depression in early adulthood.

Methods

A convenience sample of 260 young adults responded to the survey. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and path analyses using bootstrapping.

Results

The path analysis indicated that anxious attachment and alexithymia was positively related to depression, but there was not a significant relationship between avoidant attachment and depression. In a modified path model, alexithymia mediated the positive effects of anxious attachment and avoidant attachment on depression.

Conclusion

Our study findings suggest that early adults who have insecure attachments are vulnerable to alexithymia and depression. Targeted interventions to improve emotional expressive ability may reduce depression in early adulthood.

Keywords: Adult, Depression, Affective symptoms, Object attachment

Figures and Tables

Figure 1

Path model diagram prior to modification.

Figure 2

Modified path model diagram.

Table 1

Sample Characteristics (N=260)

Table 2

Correlations of Anxious Attachment, Avoidant Attachment, Alexithymia, and Depression (N=260)

Table 3

Direct, Indirect, and Total Effects in the Path Model (N=260)

SMC=squared multiple correlations.

Notes

This article is article is a condensed form of the first author's master's thesis from University.

This study was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and future Planning (No. 2015R1A2A2A01004575/No. 2019R1H1A2039669)

^{CONFLICTS OF INTEREST} The authors declared no conflict of interest.

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ORCID iDs

Minji Gil
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8600-6590

Suk-Sun Kim
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8057-3655

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