Decreasing Alexithymia Severity & Improving Emotion Regulation in Ukrainian Military Cadets
A. Haydabrus, S. LarionovIntroduction
Alexithymia (A), a difficulty in identifying and describing emotions, affects about 10% of the population and up to 40% of individuals with PTSD (Preece et al., 2022; Putica, 2024). Military personnel are particularly vulnerable, with A strongly assotiated with psychological distress and PTSD. Interventions such as cognitive reappraisal and affect labeling may reduce avoidance behaviours and improve emotion regulation, anxiety, and depression (Torunsky et al., 2023; Scarpazza et al., 2022; Preece et al., 2023; Meuleman et al., 2023).
Objectives
To evaluate the effects of a mobile application practicing cognitive reappraisal and affect labeling on alexithymia, emotion regulation, and mental health outcomes in cadets.
Methods
Twenty-four Ukrainian military cadets (mean age 20.7 years, range 17–30) completed baseline and one-month follow-up surveys. Both surveys included the Toronto Alexithymia Scale–Difficulty Identifying Feelings, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-16, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale-10, and PTSD Checklist-5.
Results
Seventeen participants completed the study (7 males, 41.2%; 10 females, 58.8%). At baseline, 47% were alexithymic. 47% of them had moderate–severe anxiety, and 29% had moderately severe depression, exceeding general population rates.
After one month (Figure 1), 65% showed reduced alexithymia (1A), 53% reduced or stable emotion regulation (1B), and 65% reduced or stable PTSD severity (1F). Anxiety (1C) and depression (1D) worsened in 53% and 59%, respectively, likely reflecting job-related stress. Resilience declined in 53% (1E), warranting further analysis of occupational factors and potential data anomalies.
Figure 2 shows that participants with reduced A (2A) had a mean TAS-DIF decrease of 3.36±2.77, those with improved ER (2B) a decrease of 7.42±5.28, and those with reduced PTSD severity (2F) a decrease of 2.57±2.06.
Image 1: Long description.