Toronto alexithymia scale for patients with eating disorder: [corrected] performance using the non-parametric item response theory.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) in patients with eating disorders. As a secondary objective, we analyzed a subset of items in order to determine whether the total score is a good tool for classifying these patients and whether the items are ordered according to the difficulty of choosing a particular answer depending on the severity of the patient's condition.

Subjects And Methods: We administered the TAS-20 to 103 consecutive patients who met DSM-IV-R criteria for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or eating disorders not otherwise specified.