Validity and Reliability of the Brief COPE in Carers of People With Dementia: The LASER-AD Study (original) (raw)

2008, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

The Brief COPE is a self-completed questionnaire measuring coping strategies. It comprises 14 subscales for which psychometric properties are described. Three composite subscales measuring emotion-focused, problem-focused, and dysfunctional coping have proved useful in clinical research and have content validity. We report psychometric properties of these subscales for the first time. One hundred twenty-five family carers of people with Alzheimer's disease completed the Brief COPE at time 1, 92 (82.9% of eligible carers) a year later, and 74 (77.1%) 2 years later. Internal consistencies were good for emotion-focused, problem-focused, and dysfunctional subscales (␣ ϭ 0.72, 0.84, 0.75). Test-retest reliability over a year was demonstrated for emotion-focused, problem-focused, and dysfunctional subscales among carers in whom burden scores did not change significantly (r ϭ 0.58, r ϭ 0.72, r ϭ 0.68; p Ͻ 0.001). Change in burden score over 2 years correlated with change in problem-focused and dysfunctional (r ϭ 0.33, r ϭ 0.32; p Ͻ 0.01) subscales, indicating sensitivity to change, but not with change on the emotion-focused scale. Change in emotion-focused coping correlated with change in problem-focused and dysfunctional coping (r ϭ 0.40, r ϭ 0.26; p Ͻ 0.05). Regression analyses indicated convergent and concurrent validity: emotion-focused coping was predicted by secure attachment (␤ ϭ 0.23) and by problem-focused coping (␤ ϭ 0.68); dysfunctional coping by burden (␤ ϭ 0.36) and less secure attachment (␤ ϭ Ϫ0.25) and problem-focused coping (␤ ϭ 0.31;all p Ͻ 0.05). The model predicting problem-focused coping included avoidant attachment (␤ ϭ 0.22; p ϭ 0.014), social support (␤ ϭ 0.10; p ϭ 0.25), care recipient activities of daily living impairment (␤ ϭ 0.12; p ϭ 0.14) and less secure attachment (␤ ϭ Ϫ0.25; p ϭ 0.011) and emotionfocused (␤ ϭ 0.53; p Ͻ 0.001) and dysfunctional coping (␤ ϭ 0.25, p ϭ 0.006). These subscales are potentially useful in clinical research as they reflect possible components of interventions to change coping, although more information about sensitivity to change of the emotion-focused subscale is needed.