[The Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Experienced Level of Existential Emptiness]

Psychiatric patients are affected by diseases and mental symptoms that may worsen their ability to adjust emotionally. Being unable to respond to the emptiness, increases the risk of suicidal behaviors.

This study was designed to translate the Experienced Level of Existential Emptiness (ELEE) scale, developed by Hazell in 1984, from the original English into Chinese and then to test its reliability and validity.

This research adopted a cross-sectional design and collected data using convenience sampling and a structured questionnaire. The subjects of this study were psychiatric outpatients in the acute and chronic wards of a psychiatric hospital in Taiwan. The instruments used in this research included a demographic datasheet; the ELEE; the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness Scale, version 3; the Beck Depression Inventory-II; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y form; and the Oxford Happiness Inventory. After the data were obtained, the reliability and validity of the Chinese-version scale was tested.

Three hundred subjects were surveyed. The content validity index value of the ELEE was between .88 and 1, and the retest reliability and intrinsic consistency were good. From the analysis of criterion-related validity, a higher degree of emptiness was shown to correlate with more-obvious feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Conversely, a higher sense of happiness was shown to correlate with less-obvious feelings of these three variables. After the construct validity test, which used confirmatory factor analysis and regarded the co-variation coefficient of association and model fit index as the basis of consideration, the scale was reduced to two sub-scales of seven questions each. After the deletion of items, the scale retained good retest reliability and intrinsic consistency, supporting the retention of the 14 questions in the scale.

The findings of this study support using the Chinese version of the ELEE to measure emptiness in patients with mental illness and then providing appropriate medical assistance based on the measured results.