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Hopelessness is a transdiagnostically relevant clinical construct, related to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidality. Economic, valid, and reliable assessment of hopelessness is thus crucial for both research and clinical practice. This study aimed at validating a nine-item short version of the Beck Hopelessness Scale in three large German samples of psychiatric inpatients, psychotherapy outpatients, and healthy controls. Data from N = 2321 participants (86.3 % female, mean age 31.8 years SD=10.4) were used to analyze reliability, factorial validity, concurrent and discriminant validity of the BHS-9. Results showed good psychometric characteristics of the BHS-9 in inpatients, supporting its unidimensionality, construct validity, and reliability. However, factorial validity was insufficient in outpatients and controls. In the outpatient and control samples, the majority of participants were women. All reported analyses were cross-sectional. The BHS-9 appears to be suitable for assessing hopelessness in psychiatric inpatients. However, the factorial validity of this short instrument in non-inpatient settings should be subject to future studies before its implementation in these person groups can be recommended.
Forkmann et al. (Mon,) studied this question.