The psychometric properties of hopelessness scale among children

Hopelessness, or negative expectations toward the future, is considered to be a central feature of depression. This can affect individual’s personal, familial, occupational, educational and social functions negatively. The current research aimed to study the psychometric properties of hopelessness scale in children within the age range of 12-19. After translating items of HSC to Persian, a sample of 603 guidance and high school students (300 girls and 303 boys) were selected from all students of Tehran. To measure divergent/convergent validity of the scale, children depression scale (CDI) and adolescent’s self-efficacy scale (SEQ-C) were performed in parallel. A first-order Confirmatory factor analysis was used to measure hopelessness scale in children (HSC) questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of HSC in students was calculated 77% and was relatively satisfactory. The Factor analysis of HSC was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. An analysis of correlation coefficients has revealed that HSC has a significant positive relation with depression scale and a significant negative relation with self-efficacy scale which indicates that there is a convergent validity between HSC and depression scale in children and a divergent validity between it and self-efficacy in adolescents. First-order confirmatory factor analysis of HSC scale has shown a better fitness with observed data. The confirmatory factor structure, validity and reliability of HSC were relatively satisfactory for research purposes and clinical diagnoses.