The Social Hopelessness Questionnaire (SHQ): Psychometric properties, distress, and suicide ideation in a heterogeneous sample of older adults

Abstract

Background: Older adults have high rates of suicide, necessitating attention to psychological factors that confer risk for suicide. Hopelessness is significantly associated with psychological despair and suicide risk factors; however, research has been limited by unidimensional treatment of the construct. The purpose of the present study was thus to investigate the psychometric properties of the Social Hopelessness Questionnaire (SHQ; Flett et al., 2021), a 20-item measure of hopelessness in the interpersonal domain, in a heterogeneous sample of older adults.

Methods: Ninety adults 65 years of age or older were recruited from community, residential, or healthcare facilities in the context of a validation study of the Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale (GSIS; Heisel & Flett, 2006). Participants voluntarily completed the SHQ, a demographics form, and concurrent measures of global hopelessness, depressive symptom severity, suicide ideation, and subjective well-being.

Results: The SHQ demonstrated strong internal consistency, construct validity by way of significant positive associations with negative psychological factors and negative associations with positive factors, and differentiated older adults recruited from community and mental health settings. It also explained significant variability in depression, suicide ideation, and subjective well-being beyond that accounted for by an age-specific measure of global hopelessness.

Limitations: Findings were limited by a small clinical sub-sample, relatively few male participants, cross-sectional analysis, and focus on suicide ideation rather than suicide behavior.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that the SHQ is a reliable and valid measure of an interpersonal form of hopelessness for use with older adults across diverse settings.

Keywords: Depression; Geropsychology; Hopelessness; Older Adults; Psychometrics; Social Hopelessness; Suicide Ideation.