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Hope leads to lower depression and anxiety and is associated with improved quality of life of cancer patients. In this study, Hope Scale (HS) was translated into Malay, and the psychometric properties of the Malay version of the Hope Scale were investigated among Malaysian cancer patients. Concurrent translation and back translation of the original English version of the Hope Scale were performed, and the Malay version was administered to 195 cancer patients with different cancer diagnoses at baseline assessment and 2 months later at follow-up. The Hope Scale (Malay) total score (Cronbach's α = 0.72; intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.67) and its domains (Cronbach's α [pathway] = 0.7; Cronbach's α [agency] = 0.7; ICC [Pathway] = 0.64; ICC [Agency] = 0.70) demonstrated acceptable internal consistencies and test-retest reliability. Convergent and discriminant validities were also achieved by the Hope Scale (Malay). The Hope Scale (Malay) demonstrated construct validity, as confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the items in the Hope Scale (Malay) best fit into two domains, which was true for the original English version. The Hope Scale (Malay) had acceptable psychometric properties and thus is suitable for assessing hope in Malaysian cancer patients.

The prevalence of depression and anxiety have been shown to be higher in the urban population compared with the rural population. The present study investigated the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and depression with comorbid anxiety and their associated factors in a random sample drawn from several urban communities in Malaysia. This study also compared the odds of developing depression, anxiety, and depression with comorbid anxiety before and after the emergence of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We recruited 326 participants who were administered a sociodemographic characteristics questionnaire, the 21-item Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), to assess the presence or absence of depression, anxiety, and depression with comorbid anxiety, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQoL-BREF) to assess their QoL. The following prevalence values were obtained among the participants: depression, 23.9%; anxiety, 41.7%; and depression with comorbid anxiety, 19.9%. The factors significantly associated with higher odds of psychological complications included those assessed after the emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic and the presence of comorbid stress. Higher physical health-related QoL, psychological QoL, and environment-related QoL reduced the odds of psychological complications. Based on our findings, we recommended a few measures to curb psychological complications among the urban population, particularly as the battle to contain COVID-19 is still ongoing.