• Sami Hamdan Alzahrani, Saravanan Coumaravelou, Ibrahim Mahmoud, Jameel Beshawri, and Mohammed Algethami.
• From the Family Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Ann Saudi Med. 2020 Jan 1; 40 (1): 55-62.

BackgroundMedical students are at higher risk of developing alexithymia due to the nature of their studies.ObjectivesDetermine the prevalence of alexithymia and potential risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia.DesignA cross-sectional analytic study.SettingsUniversity medical school.Patients And MethodsAn institutional cross-sectional survey of medical students was conducted using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to assess the prevalence of alexithymia and potentially associated factors (gender, parental marital status, grade point average, status of accommodations, smoking status, year of study, childhood abuse, a history of mental illness, and physical activity).Main Outcome MeasuresGender, parental marital status, grade point average, status of accommodations, smoking status, year of study, childhood abuse, a history of mental illness, and physical activity.Sample Size347.ResultsThe prevalence of alexithymia among medical students was 49% (95% confidence interval [43.8-54.2]). A binary logistic regression model showed significant associations between alexithymia and academic year of study (lower risk of alexithymia in the clerkship (5th, 6th years); odds ratio [OR]: 0.43, 95% CI: 0.26-0.72), smoking (OR: 3.52, 95% CI: 1.60-3.34), grade point average (lowest; OR: 10.44, 95% CI: 4.24-25.77), history of childhood abuse (OR: 2, 95% CI: 1.20-8.77), and history of psychiatric illness (OR: 14.40, 95% CI: 4.76-21.06).ConclusionAlmost half of the medical students suffer from alexithymia. Increasing the awareness about alexithymia among students and directing them where to seek help would facilitate the management of these problems.LimitationsLimited only to medical students from the second year to the sixth year in a single medical college, which affects generalizability. The cross-sectional design might have also limited generalizability.Conflict Of InterestNone.

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