ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Effect of Shugan Jieyu capsule combined with group psychological counseling on alexithymia in hemodialysis patients
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Hemodialysis Room, Qian'an People's Hospital, Qian'an, China
- 2Department of Critical Care Medicine, Qian'an People's Hospital, Qian'an, China
- 3Department of Emergency Medicine, Emergency Command Center, Qian'an, China
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Aim: To explore the effect of Shugan Jieyu capsule combined with group psychological counseling on alexithymia in hemodialysis patients. Methods: A total of 120 nephropathy patients undergoing hemodialysis at our hospital's dialysis center from January 2023 to December 2024 were enrolled and randomly divided into a control group and a study group. The control group received estazolam treatment plus routine nursing, while the study group received Shugan Jieyu capsule and group psychological counseling in addition to estazolam treatment and routine nursing. Various parameters, including alexithymia, depression, anxiety, sleep quality, personal and social performance, self-care ability, quality of life, serum levels of orphanin FQ and interleukin-2, adverse reaction incidence, and nursing satisfaction, were compared between the two groups. Results: At both 4 and 8 weeks post-intervention, all measured parameters improved significantly from baseline in both groups (P<0.05). More importantly, the study group demonstrated superior outcomes compared to the control group, including significantly lower scores on the TAS-20 (alexithymia), HAMA (anxiety), HAMD (depression), and PSQI (sleep quality), along with higher scores on the PSP (personal and social performance), ESCA (self-care ability), and WHOQOL-BREF (quality of life). Additionally, serum levels of orphanin FQ and interleukin-2 were significantly lower in the study group (all P<0.05). Conclusion: Shugan Jieyu capsule combined with group psychological counseling effectively alleviates alexithymia, anxiety, and depression, improves sleep quality, reduces serum levels of orphanin FQ and interleukin-2, and enhances personal and social performance, self-care ability, quality of life, and nursing satisfaction in hemodialysis patients.
Keywords: alexithymia, Anxiety, Depression, Group psychological counseling, hemodialysis, shugan jieyu capsule
Received: 08 Oct 2025; Accepted: 19 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Gao, Li and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xiaoling Li
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