(047) Hope and Flourishing: The Effect of Hope on Psychological Flourishing in Participants with Chronic Pain

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Patients living with chronic pain conditions, especially conditions for which there is no cure, may experience feelings of hopelessness and mental health challenges with the continuation of health issues. This study explored the relationship between hope for a cure to a condition and psychological flourishing, with exploratory variables such as age, whether participants were told that their chronic condition might be curable, and whether they believed their condition to be curable. Objectives The hypothesis was that participants with chronic pain who score high in hope, operationalized by the Herth Hope Index, would also score high in psychological flourishing, measured by Diener’s Psychological Flourishing Scale. Methods Participants were 116 females with chronic conditions including endometriosis and fibromyalgia between the ages of 18 and 50-years-old recruited online via Facebook to complete a Qualtrics survey. Results In the testing of exploratory variables, there was a significant correlation between participant belief that their pain was curable and participant scores on the Psychological Flourishing Scale, r=.203, N=101, p<0.05, two tails. A Pearson product-moment calculation explored the relationship between total scores on the Herth Hope Index (M=23.901, SD=4.072) and the Psychological Flourishing Scale (M=33.087, SD=11..372). This relationship was found to be statistically significant, r=.736, N=102, p<0.01, two tails, indicating a strong positive relationship between scores on the Herth Hope Index and scores on the Psychological Flourishing Scale. Higher belief that pain was curable was associated with higher scores on the Psychological Flourishing Scale. There was not, however, a significant correlation between being told that one’s condition is incurable or participant age and scores on the Psychological Flourishing Scale. A finding of note was that believing one’s condition to be incurable was distinct from and more significant than being told by a physician that a condition was incurable. Conclusions Further studies should include more diverse samples, or into other factors that might promote psychological flourishing in patients with chronic pain. In particular, future studies could investigate how the discussions clinicians may have with their patients in regard to outcomes for their health conditions could affect psychological outcomes for the patients. A better understanding of language that could be detrimental for the psychological flourishing of patients with chronic conditions would be important to inform best practices for clinician-patient interactions. Disclosure No.