The use of music therapy songwriting in the assessment of hopelessness in depressed adolescents

Abstract: Hopelessness, defined as a negative expectation towards the future, is both a core characteristic of adolescent depression and the key variable linking depression to suicidal behavior. In order to facilitate the assessment of hopelessness, the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) was developed to measure negative expectations. A review of the literature conveyed taht although the BHS is a valid measure of hopelessness, difficulty exists in making interferences from the Beck Hopelessness Scale and further research with the scale was recommended. Because hopelessness is the key variable linking depression to suicide, it appears that the development of additional tools for measuring hopelessness is an important step for improving the treatment and prevention of suicidality. The purpose of this study was to develop a songwriting assessment procedure for the use of assessing hopelessness in depressed adolescents. This procedure involved the use of the Goldstein Songwriting Assessment for Hopelessness, a 12 bar blues song form with fill-in-the-blank lyrics adapted from the true/false questions of the Beck Hopelessness Scale. Both the BHS and the GSA tests were administered to eight subjects selected from an in-patient psychiatric hospital on the basis of their diagnosis of depression, depressed mood, or as assessed by the attending psychiatrist as being at risk for suicide. Songwriting responses were independently rated by three music therapists blind to the study according to a rating scale developed by this researcher. Interrater reliability was tested using Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance. BHS and GSA scores were tested for correlation with Kendall's tau. A Null hypothesis was applied to the correlations between the two test scores to be accepted if there was no significance at the .05 level. Results of interrater reliability was significant among raters with p < .05 and a .9 coefficient of concordance. The level of agreement between scores on the BHS and the Goldstein Songwriting Assessment was determined to be significant at the .005 level. Thus, the Null hypothesis was rejected. These results support the potentially viable use of the Goldstein Songwriting Assessment for Hopelessness and suggest that this Songwriting Assessment for Hopelessness may be a logical starting point for formal construction and validation of the GSA.

Keyword(s): Songwriting, hopelessness, assessment, adolescent, depression, Beck-hopelessness-scale.

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