An Association between Alexithymia and the Characteristics of Sport Practice: A Multicenter, Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: This was a multicenter, cross-sectional study which aimed to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of sport practice (weekly training duration, level of practice) and alexithymia in adults who were officially licensed at a sports club.

Methods: From a sample of sports club licensed adults, 188 participants were included. The participants completed computerized questionnaires on anthropometric data and characteristics of sport practice (level and weekly time spent on sport practice) as well as alexithymia (TAS 20), depression (BDI-13) and anxiety traits (STAI-Y form B).

Results: In this sample, 91 (48.4%) and 97 (51.6%) athletes engaged in recreational and competitive sport practice, respectively. We observed a prevalence of 31.9% for alexithymia. Moreover, alexithymics were more involved in competitive than recreational practice (40.2% versus 23.1%, respectively; = 0.019) and they were less anxious (63.9% versus 80.2%, respectively; = 0.010). Finally, alexithymia was significantly more pronounced than non-alexithymia among sports competition practitioners (OR: 3.57 (95 CI [1.26-10.08]; = 0.016) and we observed less alexithymia in team sports practice than confrontation sports (OR: 0.20 (95 CI [0.05-0.78]; = 0.020).

Conclusions: Alexithymic athletes were more involved in competition than recreational sports compared to non-alexithymic subjects, whilst there were more alexithymic athletes in confrontation sports than in team sports.