Abstract
Background.
Adaptive coping abilities are crucial for dealing with both personal and social crises and have increasingly come into the focus of public health in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and other simultaneous crises. However, coping is not yet a regular component of population-based health monitoring, most probably due to reasons of complexity, variety and length of existing scales. Thus, the aim of this research was to develop and validate a short coping scale able to measure key strategies in the face of diverse critical situations and suitable for use in large-scale assessments of the general adult population.
Methods.
Based on an umbrella-like review 7 eligible existing coping scales were investigated in an online survey with 2,613 adults from Germany (18–79 years, 50.6% female) to identify appropriate items and their factorial structure. Preliminary scales were validated in German and English based on a second online survey with 1,986 adults from Germany and the United Kingdom (18–79 years, 50.6% female).
Results.
The results suggested excellent model fit of a 16- and 8-item scale (CFI ≥ .97, RMSEA ≤ .05) with two items each summarized to eight respectively four coping factors (e.g., perseverance, flexibility). The coping scales reached scalar variance for different age groups, sexes by birth, coping contexts and study locations, with minor limitations for the 8-item scale, requiring further evidence.
Conclusions.
The developed scales cover relevant coping strategies that can be considered both adaptive and maladaptive regarding different health outcomes, allow continuous public health surveillance and derive implications for promotion measures.