New measure of daily coping: Development and preliminary results.

Abstract

Developed a new measure of coping with daily problems for use in longitudinal studies with repeated assessments. Development began with a checklist of specific coping behaviors and cognitions taken from existing questionnaires, but adequate levels of internal consistency could not be achieved for items grouped into rationally derived coping categories. A study in which the checklist items were sorted into the categories showed that particular behaviors or cognitions could represent different types of coping. This led to the development of a questionnaire with an open-ended response format. This brief questionnaire was used by 60 married couples (mean age of husbands 43 yrs; mean age of wives 40 yrs) for 21 consecutive days. Sex of respondent and problem appraisal were associated with amount and type of coping. A moderate amount of within-S consistency in coping with the same problem over time was also observed. Implications of the developmental studies and attributes of the new assessment are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)