ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Feelings of emptiness, pathological personality traits, and suicidal risk: an exploratory study using the modified subjective emptiness scale in an Italian general population sample.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
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
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Subjective emptiness is a painful affective experience increasingly recognized as transdiagnostic and multidimensional. Yet, empirical assessment of its multidimensional nature remains limited. Because emptiness stems from instability in self-organization and emotional integration, it is closely connected to personality functioning. Previous studies found that identity pathology and emptiness independently predicted suicidal ideation, with emptiness partially mediating the relationship between identity disturbance and suicidality. This study developed and validated the Modified Subjective Emptiness Scale (M-SES), a 25-item instrument designed to capture the phenomenological facets of emptiness and examined its associations with maladaptive personality traits and suicidal ideation in a community sample. Methods: Participants were 202 adults (71.3% female; Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure-Physical/Bodily emptiness, Interpersonal/Social disconnection, Dissatisfaction/Lack of purpose, and Severity/Self-level impairment-showing good fit indices. A second-order factor model confirmed that the four dimensions load on a higher-order Subjective Emptiness factor. All M-SES dimensions correlated strongly with Negative Affectivity and Detachment, and moderately with Psychoticism, supporting convergent validity. Regression analyses showed that Interpersonal/Social disconnection uniquely predicted suicidal ideation severity. Mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of Detachment and Psychoticism on suicidal ideation via interpersonal emptiness, while Disinhibition exerted only a direct effect. Discussion: Findings support the M-SES as a psychometrically sound measure capturing both the structural and affective dimensions of subjective emptiness. Interpersonal emptiness emerged as a central experiential pathway linking maladaptive personality traits to suicidal ideation, emphasizing its clinical relevance as a target for assessment and intervention. Future studies should extend validation to clinical populations and longitudinal designs.
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.