ABSTRACT
Background: Hopelessness is an important variable in parasuicide and suicide. The need for a valid and reliable Amharic version (AV) of Hopelessness Scale (HS) for clinical screening is obvious. Objective: To test the validity and the reliability of the AV of HS. Methods: 100 consecutive parasuicide cases arriving at the OPD were included in this `retrospective descriptive clinical case study'. Self-rated AV of HS and interviewer-rated Expanded BPRS was administered. The AV of HS was validated against the corres- ponding item/items on the Expanded BPRS. Reliability test was also performed. Results: Concurrent validity: Yule's Q; between AV of HS and Expanded BPRS depression and suicidality items were 0.66265; p=0.00052 and 0.55585; p=0.04144 respectively. Construct validity: It was shown that cases with the intention `to die' had significantly higher (p=0.0028) HS scores than those without the intention. The association between the dichotomous measures of AV of HS and intention `to die' was very highly positive and significant (Yule's Q=0.89563; P=0.00011). No such relationships between the AV of HS scores and other 9 endorsed intentions/`reasons' for parasuicidal act with different themes. These findings indicate that the AV of HS has an acceptable construct validity to measure Hopelessness. Reliability: in item-total correlation test; only item no. 5 was eliminated due to low correlation coefficient (0.0370; p=0.715). Three more items were eliminated in factor analysis which yielded 3 factors similar to Beck's finding. Conclusion: The AV of HS has acceptable validity; reliability and factor loading. Items recommended to be discarded have to be re-translated/re-written to keep the meaning as close to the original (eng version) as possible. Further validation studies are advisable to be done. In the meantime; the AV of HS has to be applied clinically in vulnerable groups