Adult attachment and parental bonding: associations with fibromyalgia and alexithymia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain syndrome, associated with different psychological conditions such as alexithymia. Insecure attachment styles and inadequate parental care appear to play an important role in the onset and maintenance of both alexithymia and chronic pain. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine the associations between attachment styles, parental bonding, and alexithymia among patients with FM compared with healthy controls (HCs). \nOne hundred women with FM and 107 healthy women were recruited for the present study and filled in the following questionnaires: (1) Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), to evaluate alexithymia; (2) Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and (4) Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ), to assess parental care and adult attachment styles, respectively. \nA first logistic regression model was tested to examine whether parental bonding, adult attachment styles, and alexithymia predicted group membership (FM vs. HC). Results showed that “difficulty identifying feelings” (OR= 0.77; 95% CI= 0.71;0.84;) and “difficulty describing feelings” (OR=1.17; 95% CI= 1.04;1.33) subscales of the TAS-20 were statistically significant predictors of group membership (i.e., the likelihood of having FM). The final model explained 56% of the variance and correctly classified 80% of the cases. A second logistic regression was run in order to examine the effects of parental bonding and attachment styles on the likelihood of having alexithymia (both in patients with FM and HCs). Results showed that “discomfort with closeness” (OR= 1.06; 95% CI= 1.01;1.12) and “relationships as secondary” (OR= 1.09; 95% CI= 1.02;1.17) subscales of the ASQ were statistically significant predictors of the likelihood of having alexithymia. The final model explained 30% of the variance and correctly classified 81% of the cases. \nTaken together, the present findings highlight both the relevance of alexithymic traits to the definition of FM and the centrality of an insecure attachment style to the manifestation of alexithymia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".