De récentes recherches ont mis en évidence des liens significatifs et positifs entre l’espoir des personnes atteintes de maladie chronique et leur qualité de vie. Dans la continuité de ces recherches, cette étude exploratoire vise à comprendre la structure et la nature de l’espoir des personnes atteintes de maladie chronique, selon l’approche des représentations sociales. Deux cent cinquante-trois individus (M_âge=37,51 ans ; ET=16,95 ; 68,80 % de femmes) ont participé à cette étude, répartis selon trois échantillons : patients, soignants et population générale. Les résultats mettent en évidence une représentation de l’espoir spécifique pour les patients. Par ailleurs, ils montrent que l’espoir est assimilable à un mécanisme d’adaptation utilisée par les personnes confrontées à une maladie chronique.

Hope has a significant place in many literatures and most recently in health context. Nevertheless, there is still little research describing the distinct concepts and representations of hope in patients’ population. Hope is defined as perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways. The main objective of this study is to explore the representation of hope, in the context of chronic disease, for both patients and health providers. For that purpose, we conducted the present study considering the social representation approach. The sample consisted of 67 chronic disease patients (mean age=51.13 years; SD=19.05; 68.70% female), 83 health care professionals (mean age=35.32 years; SD=11.49; 74.70% female) and 103 individuals from the general population (mean age=30.41 years; SD=13.85; 64.10% female). They completed two free associations task: write “everything that comes into your mind when you think about hope”, one in general and one in disease context. Free associations allowed us to identify shared conceptions of hope as well as intergroup variations in these representations. Associations with the word of hope produced by our respondents were depending on (a) the context (hope in disease or hope in general), and (b) the type of participant (patient, healthcare professionals or individuals from the general population). The results first indicate that hope, for all participants and whatever the context, refers to the beliefs of positive issues and perspectives. Moreover, dealing with a chronic disease seems to create, for the patients, a very specific representation of hope. It appears that when disease becomes serious and persistent, and when patients need to deal with uncertainty, hope is mainly described as a coping strategy, determined by specific objectives and resources.