Levels of measured hopelessness in the general population

Abstract

Beck's Hopelessness scale was administered to a sample of 400 randomly selected adults in order to derive norms for the scale for the general population. The mean HS score was 4·45 with a standard deviation of 3·9, approximately one standard deviation lower than the reported means for clinical groups. The relationship between HS scores and the demographic variables, sex, age, socio‐economic status and marital status, was also examined.