The main description of alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by difficulties in experiencing and verbalizing emotions, and a poor capacity for symbolic thought reflected as a tendency toward externally oriented thinking.

The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of alexithymia on tendency of somatization and sleep quality in depressive patients.

Eighty-five major depression patientswere included in the study. the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Toronto Alexithmia Scale, Symptom Interpretation Questionairre (SIQ) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used for assesments and measurements.

Patients with major depression were divided into two groups that alexithymic and non-alexithymic according to the aim of the study. there were significant differences in the BDI scores, the number of somatizating symptoms and psychologizing and somatizing scale scores in the SIQ, and daytime functionality scores in PSQI between alexithmic and non-alexithymic depressive patients.

Alexithymia seems to be related with depressive symptomatology. Depressive patients with alexithymia may display abnormal health belief and difficulty in expressing their complaints. Therefore, alexithymia is a feature that affects the pattern of depressive symptoms. This present study confirmed that depressive patients have high prevalence of alexithymia, somatization and difficulty in expressing the feelings. Because of the loss of daytime functionality in the alexithymic depressive patients, clinicians should consider alexithymia in clinical practices.