ABSTRACT
Objective:To explore the effectiveness of an 8-week hope group counseling on the level of hope in offenders.Methods:The experiment used quasi-experiment design and 24 offenders whose scores of Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS) were one standard deviation lower than the overall average were assigned to the intervention group (n =12) and the control group (n =12).The subjects in the intervention group received group counseling for improving the level of hope (90 min per week for 8 times),and the control group kept normal.The ADHS (including agency thoughts and pathway thoughts),Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to evaluate the effectiveness before and after intervention.Besides,the study involved the follow-up test in the forth-week after the intervention.Differences within groups were compared by using t-test of paired samples.Differences between groups were compared by using analysis of covariance and JohnsonNeyman method.Result:The results of differences within groups showed that,in the follow-up test,the scores of ADHS,agency thought and pathway thought were higher than that of before the intervention,and the scores of SAS were lower than that of before the intervention(Ps ＜0.01).The results of differences between groups showed that,=in the follow-up test,the scores of ADHS,agency thought and pathway thought were higher in the intervention group than in the control group,and the scores of SAS were lower in the intervention group than in the control group [(48.0 ±5.7)vs.(39.2 ±5.6),(23.1 ±3.4)vs.(19.0 ±3.2),(24.9 ±3.0)vs.(20.2 ± 3.4),(36.4 ± 7.6)vs.(41.2 ±6.5);Ps ＜0.01].The results of Johnson-Neyman method showed that when the scores of ADHS in the intervention group were between 8 and 37 points on the pre-test,the scores of hope on the post-test were higher in the intervention group than in the control group[(48.8 ± 4.9) vs.(35.7 ± 4.9),P ＜ 0.05].Conclusion:These findings suggest that the group counseling could improve the level of hope in offenders.