Adaptation and Psychometric Properties in Spanish of the Herth Hope Index in People Who have Attempted Suicide

Abstract

Suicide is a major global public health problem. The most predictive behavior of completed suicide is prior suicide attempt. However, studies focused on risk factors have to date proved unsuccessful in reducing death by suicide rates. To adapt a hope assessment tool to a Spanish clinical population having carried out a suicide attempt, to evaluate whether hope modulates the resilience level following discharge from the emergency department. The sample comprised 682 people (62.4% female) aged between 18 and 77 years (M = 39; SD = 19.1) with previous suicide attempts who were administered the Herth Hope Index, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the 14-item Resilience Scale. The HHI in Spanish (IEH) showed a high internal consistency (α = .97), a two-dimensional structure that explains 73% of the variance with high goodness-of-fit indices (GFI = .91; CFI = .89; RMSEA = .08), and divergent validity of -.77 with hopelessness. Significant hope-related differences by resilience level were also observed. Hope modulates resilience to suicide attempts and a new scale adapted to the Spanish clinical population is offered. This short tool is easy to use in emergency department settings and predicts the level of potential vulnerability to more serious future repeated attempts.