[Can Emptiness be measured? The Psychometric Evaluation of the German Version of the Subjective Emptiness Scale].

Abstract

Subjective feelings of inner emptiness represent a transdiagnostic phenomenon that plays a major role in clinical practice, but has so far been insufficiently addressed by psychometrics. The recently developed Subjective Emptiness Scale (SES) is a user-friendly measure that fills this gap. In this study, the German version of the SES was psychometrically evaluated in a rather large general population sample.Respondents from a sample representative of the German general population (N=2508) completed the SES and other instruments to measure psychological distress. The eval-uation included a confirmatory factor analysis, calculation of test statistics (e. g., item-total correlations, internal consistency) and correlation analyses of the sum score with sociodemographic and clinical variables. In addition, age- and gender-specific norm values were determined in the form of T-values.The SES demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure with good model fit (CFI=0.999; TLI=0.998) and excellent internal consistency (McDonald's ω=0.92). Corrected item-total correlation was above 0.75 in all instances. Significant positive correlations of the sum score were found with depression and anxiety symptoms, providing evidence for criterion validity. Normative T-scores were established for age groups and gender; an SES value of 11 can be considered to be markedly increased (T₇₀).The German version of the SES proves to be a reliable and potentially valid instrument for measuring subjective emptiness. For a further analysis of its clinical applicability and the definition of clinically relevant threshold values, studies in clinical samples are required.