Coping Scales

Original Editor - Lucinda hampton

Top Contributors - Lucinda hampton  

Introduction

Coping refers to thoughts and behaviors used to manage stressful situations. The term is used for conscious and voluntary acts, as opposed from 'defense mechanisms' (subconscious or unconscious adaptive responses).

Coping scales are used to measure the type of coping mechanism a person uses. Commonly used scales are COPE (Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced), Ways of Coping Questionnaire, Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations, Religious-COPE, and Coping Response Inventory.

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The Brief-COPE is a 28 item self-report questionnaire designed to measure effective and ineffective ways to cope with a stressful life event. See here

This scale finds use in health-care settings to determine how patients are emotionally responding to a grave circumstance. For example it can be used to see how an individual is coping with a cancer diagnosis, heart failure, injuries, assaults, natural disasters, financial stress or mental illness. It helps the healthcare provider see the helpful and unhelpful ways someone responds to stressors.

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The Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WAYS) assesses thoughts and actions individuals use to cope with the stressful encounters of everyday living. Its' origin is from a cognitive phenomenological theory of stress and coping that is articulated in Stress, Appraisal, and Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and elsewhere (e.g., Lazarus, 1981; Lazarus & Launier, 1978).

Eight coping factors are measured by the WAYS

• Confrontive Coping,
• Distancing,
• Self-Controlling,
• Seeking Social Support,
• Accepting Responsibility,
• Escape-Avoidance,
• Planful Problem Solving,
• Positive Reappraisal.

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