Psychometric properties of the Hungarian version of the adult hope scale (AHS-H)

Abstract

Background: The Adult Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) is a widely applied measure for assessing dispositional hope. While it was translated into several languages, there has been no available Hungarian version to the present. Aim: In our study we present the Hungarian adaptation of the Adult Hope Scale (AHS-H) and its psychometric properties. Method: Data from three cross-sectional questionnaire studies (N = 1749, 746 male, 1041 female) are analyzed. Besides the construct of hope, we measured life satisfaction, meaning in life, optimism, hopelessness as well as social desirability. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for a bifactorial model of hope with a general latent Hope factor and two latent factors for the items of the two subscales (Pathways and Agency) separately. Measures of internal consistency were adequate for the whole scale and for the subscales as well (typically Cronbach's alphas ≥ 0.8). Level of hope was largely independent of sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age, education), as well as of social desirability, but positively correlated with subjective financial status. Moreover, AHS-H showed adequate convergent and discriminant validity with regard to other measures, for example life satisfaction (r = 0.501, p < 0.001) the presence of meaning in life (r = 0.465, p < 0.001), optimism (r = 0.575, p < 0.001), and hopelessness (r = - 0.569, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The Hungarian version of the Adult Hope Scale is a reliable and valid measure for assessing the global level as well as the specific domains of hope.