Levels of measured hopelessness in physically-ill patients.

Beck et al.'s Hopelessness Scale was administered to a group of 60 general hospital patients suffering from a variety of physical disorders. The group consisted of 30 chronically- and 30 acutely-ill patients. The mean Hopelessness Scale score for the whole group was 3.75 (SD 2.7). This mean score did not differ significantly from the mean Hopelessness Scale score obtained from a large sample from the general population. However it was significantly lower than the mean score of 40 clinically-depressed psychiatric hospital patients. No significant differences were found between the levels of measured hopelessness of the chronically ill and acutely ill.