Role of hope and resilience in the outcome of depression and related suicidality

Depression is a common disease that reduces the quality of life and limits seriously patient’s psychosocial functioning. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of hope and resilience in depressive disease outcomes and suicidality. Seven rating scales (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Enhanced Snyder Hope Scale, Scale of Connor
and Davidson-10, Scale for Suicide Ideation) have been administered to 75 subjects with the following features: diagnosis of unipolar depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder reporting a major current depressive episode according to DSM-V criteria, age between 18 and 75 years, no history of drug addiction, major medical condition or mental retardation. An inverse correlation has been found between higher levels of hope and resilience and lower severity of depression (p < 0.0001) among the sample and higher levels of resilience were associated with lower levels of suicidality (p = 0.037). Furthermore, an inverse correlation between age and levels of resilience (p = 0.020), an association between age and years of disease (p < 0.0001) as well as between resilience and levels of hope (p < 0.0001) were found. Hope and resilience both seem to have a positive role in the outcome of depressive illness reducing the severity of psychopathology and related suicidality.