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Treatment - Other

(PS14-93) Hope: An Active Ingredient in Care

Sunday, November 17, 2024
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM EST
Location: Franklin Hall, Level 4, Marriott Downtown
Abstract Text:


Objectives:  Amongst those who seek and engage with mental health care, many experience varying levels of improvement. Previous research suggests that baseline severity influences how much someone improves from care. This study aims to explore one specific factor that may contribute to one's experience in care: hopelessness. In order to explore the role of hope in mental health care, this study examined data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a novel, peer-led intervention developed at the University of Michigan: Mood Lifters (ML). Mood Lifters was created to increase the availability of accessible, evidence-based mental health care. The program utilized peer leaders, psychoeducation, and a group format to help reduce the cost and increase the availability of care.


Method:  Participants filled out mental health measures before and after completing the program. As a part of these measures, participants completed the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Kroenke et al., 2001) and beck hopelessness scale (BHS; Beck et al., 1974). In this study, the PHQ-9 represented depression severity, and the BHS represented hopelessness. This study explores a possible moderation model between baseline depression, baseline hopelessness, and change in depression over the program. 


Results:  The overall model was significant, F (3, 524) = 90.18, p < 0.0001, R2= 0.34. The model showed that entering depression scores are significant predictors of change in depression scores, and that there is a significant interaction between baseline depression scores and baseline hopelessness. Specifically, at low levels of hopelessness, there is a more positive, significant relationship between entering depression scores and change in depression scores, b = 0.57, p < 0.0001.


Conclusions:  The results from this study emphasize the importance of hope in strengthening mental health outcomes. For individuals with higher levels of depression, hope may become more important in determining improvement from care. Thus, it may be important to incorporate topics or skills at the start of care that more directly target hope. For instance, it may be helpful to include motivational interviewing techniques at the start of therapy for more people. There are other hope-building interventions and skills that could also be useful at the start of therapy that could help individuals with more severe levels of depression. By targeting hope at the start, clients with more severe depression levels may be more likely to experience strong reductions in symptoms.