TY - JOUR
T1 - Identifying hopelessness in population research
T2 - A validation study of two brief measures of hopelessness
AU - Fraser, Lindsay
AU - Burnell, Matthew
AU - Salter, Laura Currin
AU - Fourkala, Evangelia Ourania
AU - Kalsi, Jatinderpal
AU - Ryan, Andy
AU - Gessler, Sue
AU - Gidron, Yori
AU - Steptoe, Andrew
AU - Menon, Usha
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Objective: Hopelessness is an important construct in psychosocial epidemiology, but there is great pressure on the length of questionnaire measures in large-scale population and clinical studies. We examined the validity and test-retest reliability of two brief measures of hopelessness, an existing negatively worded two-item measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Neg) and a positively worded version of the same instrument (Brief-H-Pos). Design: Cohort study. Setting: Control arm of the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening. Participants: A non-clinical research-based sample of 5000 postmenopausal women selected from 56 512 participants. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Spearman's rank correlation of brief measures of hopelessness with the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). Spearman's rank correlation with the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and change in mean score on repeat testing. Methods: Two short hopelessness measures, a negatively worded brief measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Neg) and a positively worded brief measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Pos), were administered by postal questionnaire to 5000 women together with the 20-item BHS and 20-item CES-D. The Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos were readministered to 500 women after a 2-week interval. Results: 2413 postmenopausal women (mean age 68.9 years) completed the questionnaire. The Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos correlated 0.93 and 0.87 with the BHS after correction for attenuation and their association with the CES-D mirrored that seen with the BHS (Spearman's rank correlation 0.88 and 0.68, respectively). There was no change in mean scores on the two measures with repeat testing in the 433 women who completed them and test-retest reliability was good (intraclass correlations Brief-H-Neg 0.67 and Brief-H-Pos 0.72). Conclusions: These findings provide support for the validity of the Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos. These brief measures are likely to be useful in large population studies assessing hopelessness. Trial registration number: NCT00058032.
AB - Objective: Hopelessness is an important construct in psychosocial epidemiology, but there is great pressure on the length of questionnaire measures in large-scale population and clinical studies. We examined the validity and test-retest reliability of two brief measures of hopelessness, an existing negatively worded two-item measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Neg) and a positively worded version of the same instrument (Brief-H-Pos). Design: Cohort study. Setting: Control arm of the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening. Participants: A non-clinical research-based sample of 5000 postmenopausal women selected from 56 512 participants. Primary and secondary outcome measures: Spearman's rank correlation of brief measures of hopelessness with the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS). Spearman's rank correlation with the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and change in mean score on repeat testing. Methods: Two short hopelessness measures, a negatively worded brief measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Neg) and a positively worded brief measure of hopelessness (Brief-H-Pos), were administered by postal questionnaire to 5000 women together with the 20-item BHS and 20-item CES-D. The Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos were readministered to 500 women after a 2-week interval. Results: 2413 postmenopausal women (mean age 68.9 years) completed the questionnaire. The Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos correlated 0.93 and 0.87 with the BHS after correction for attenuation and their association with the CES-D mirrored that seen with the BHS (Spearman's rank correlation 0.88 and 0.68, respectively). There was no change in mean scores on the two measures with repeat testing in the 433 women who completed them and test-retest reliability was good (intraclass correlations Brief-H-Neg 0.67 and Brief-H-Pos 0.72). Conclusions: These findings provide support for the validity of the Brief-H-Neg and Brief-H-Pos. These brief measures are likely to be useful in large population studies assessing hopelessness. Trial registration number: NCT00058032.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84901914317&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005093
DO - 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-005093
M3 - Article
C2 - 24879829
AN - SCOPUS:84901914317
SN - 2044-6055
VL - 4
JO - BMJ Open
JF - BMJ Open
IS - 5
M1 - e005093
ER -
