Observational studyBMC psychiatry2026
The effort of maintaining the defensive wall: is there a link between defense mechanisms and vitality?
Observational study in BMC psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05544877 (An Energetic View on Creativity, Psychopathology and Intelligence), which is not on this map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
An Energetic View on Creativity, Psychopathology and Intelligence: A Mixed Design Study in Adults With and Without Psychological Disorders
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVitality - the sensation of energy availability and lack of fatigue - is a transdiagnostic factor playing a role in various psychiatric disorders. Defense mechanisms are strategies individuals use to deal with internal or external stress and can be categorized by their degree of adaptiveness, summarized as defensive maturity. Immature defense mechanisms involve awareness inhibition, which is assumed to be an energy-demanding process contributing to reduced vitality. In this study, we examine whether defense mechanisms are associated with vitality.
methodsA transdiagnostic sample of 200 participants (100 with and 100 without psychiatric disorders) was analyzed in a cross-sectional design. Defensive maturity and mature and immature defense mechanisms were assessed using the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scale-Self-Report-30. Vitality was measured using the vigor and fatigue subscales of the Profile of Mood States.
resultsIn line with our hypotheses, defensive maturity and immature defense mechanisms were associated with vitality (r = .31, p < .001 and r = - .27, p < .001, respectively), even after adjusting for sleep quality (β = 0.20, p = .004 and β = - 0.16, p = .023, respectively). Additional analyses that accounted for both mature and immature mechanisms revealed that only immature defense mechanisms (β = - 0.32, p < .001), but not mature (β = - 0.07, p = .356), predicted vitality.
conclusionsOur results show that primarily immature defense mechanisms are related to impaired vitality. This is in line with the assumption that inhibiting thoughts or emotions is an energy-demanding process. Alternatively, a lack of energy availability may impair defense maturity. Targeting immature defense mechanisms in psychotherapeutic interventions may improve vitality as a transdiagnostic factor in a variety of psychiatric disorders in which fatigue is an accompanying symptom.
trial registrationThe study was registered on 2022-07-30 on https://clinicaltrials.gov/ (identifier: NCT05544877).
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.