Are Mood and Anxiety Disorders and Alexithymia Associated with Endometriosis? A Preliminary Study

Gabriele Cavaggioni, Claudia Lia, Serena Resta, Tatiana Antonielli, Pierluigi Benedetti Panici, Francesca Megiorni, Maria Grazia Porpora
BioMed research international · 2014 · vol. 2014 , pp. 1–5 · doi:10.1155/2014/786830 · PMID:25045701 · W2115539238
article OA: hybrid CC0 ⤵ 86 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This study found that mood and anxiety disorders, certain psychopathological symptoms, and alexithymia were more frequent in Italian women with endometriosis compared to controls.

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Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this preliminary study was to determine whether psychiatric disorders, psychopathological symptoms, and alexithymia are associated with endometriosis in an Italian population. STUDY DESIGN: A preliminary study comprising 37 Italian patients with surgically confirmed endometriosis and 43 controls, without clinical and ultrasound signs of endometriosis, was carried out. Both patients and controls were evaluated for the presence/absence of psychiatric disorders, psychopathological symptoms, alexithymia, and pain symptoms (nonmenstrual pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia). RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found between cases and controls for prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders, malfunctioning on obsessive-compulsive subscale (P < 0.01) and depression subscale (P < 0.05) of the Symptom Checklist-90-Revisited (SCL-90-R), and higher alexithymia levels (P < 0.01). Patients with endometriosis-associated pain showed greater prevalence of psychiatric disorders compared to pain-free patients but that difference was not significant. Significant correlation was found between malfunctioning in some SCL-90-R dimensions and pelvic pain, dysmenorrhea, and dyspareunia scores at the visual analog score (VAS). CONCLUSION: Some psychopathological aspects, such as psychoemotional distress and alexithymia, are more frequent in women with endometriosis and might amplify pain symptoms in these patients.

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Outcome instruments

VAS-pain

Condition tags

mesh:D004715mesh:D017699endometriosisdysmenorrheadyspareunia

MeSH descriptors

Affective Symptoms Anxiety Disorders Endometriosis Mood Disorders Adult Affective Symptoms Affective Symptoms Anxiety Disorders Anxiety Disorders Endometriosis Endometriosis Female Humans Laparoscopy Middle Aged Mood Disorders Mood Disorders Pelvic Pain Pelvic Pain

Citation neighborhood

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References (25)

Cited by (50)

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