Abstract
To determine the extent to which negativity about the future is specific to depression, the Hopelessness Scale (HS) scores of 199 patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) were compared with those of 48 patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 76 psychiatric patients with mixed nonaffective, nonanxiety disorders. As predicted by the cognitive model, the MDD patients had higher mean HS scores than either the GAD or control patients. In addition, HS scores were more highly correlated with clinician-rated and self-report measures of depression than with measures of anxiety. Further, the positive relationships between the HS and measures of anxiety dropped to nonsignificant levels after the corresponding measures of depression were controlled for, while the HS remained correlated with depression after controlling for level of anxiety. The results were discussed as providing partial support for the content-specificity hypothesis (negative cognitive triad) of the cognitive model of depression.
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This study, from the Foundation for Cognitive Therapy, was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH38843 to Dr. Beck.
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Beck, A.T., Riskind, J.H., Brown, G. et al. Levels of hopelessness in DSM-III disorders: A partial test of content specificity in depression. Cogn Ther Res 12, 459–469 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173413
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173413