Coping Assessment: Importance of Identifying Person-situation Interaction Effects.

Abstract

Coping assessment has focused on coping as a general trait and has overlooked the context effect, although it has been noted that considering the situation could improve the explanatory power of tests. Therefore, we aim to develop a contextual coping questionnaire for adults (CCQA). After reviewing previous coping studies and measures for our correlational study, we developed a 40 item scale related to five problem areas – work, close person relationships, own health, close person health and economy. It was completed by 416 adults. Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out with AMOS to compare a basic model which did not consider the context to a nested model that considered it. Reliability analyses were also conducted. The analyses yielded good reliability indexes (?=.78 for the complete scale; from ?=.71 to .88 for the coping strategies subscales). The nested model fit was acceptable (X2/df=2.49; GFI=.82; CFI=.86; RMSEA=.06), and better than that of the basic model (X2/df=3.24; GFI=.77; CFI=.77; RMSEA=.07). These results emphasise the importance of considering the different contexts when assessing coping strategies for designing interventions to improve health and well-being.