Controversies Regarding the Psychometric Properties of the Brief COPE: The Case of the Brazilian-Portuguese Version “COPE Breve”

Abstract

The Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) inventory investigates the different ways in which people respond to stressful situations. Knowledge is lacking regarding the coping strategies and styles of people in developing countries, including Brazil. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Brief COPE to Brazilian Portuguese (named COPE Breve) by focusing on dispositional coping. For the cross-cultural adaptation, the original Brief COPE in English (28 items grouped into 14 subscales) was adapted according to a universalistic approach, following these steps: translation, synthesis, back-translation, analysis by an expert panel, and pretest with 30 participants. Then, 237 adults from the community health service responded to the COPE Breve. Psychometric analyses included reliability and exploratory factor analysis. Most of the 14 subscales from the original Brief COPE exhibited problems related to internal consistency. A Velicer's minimum average partial test (MAP) was performed and pointed out 3 factors. Exploratory factor analysis produced a revised 20-item version with a 3-factor solution: religion and positive reframing, distraction and external support. The psychometric properties of the COPE Breve with three factors were appropriate. Limitations of this study as well as suggestions for future studies are presented. The COPE Breve should be used in Brazilian clinics and investigations, but divergences in its psychometrics should be further explored in other contexts.

The Brief COPE: Measurement Invariance and Psychometric Properties among Community and At-Risk Portuguese Parents

“…The Brief COPE (28 items [ 25 ]) was developed to deal with some constrains (e.g., impatience, difficulty in completing) felt by participants with the full COPE, but maintained its original 14-scales, using the items with higher clarity and greater factor loadings. This COPE short version has been applied in different contexts (e.g., Spain [ 36 ]; Chile [ 37 ]; New Zealand [ 52 ]) and with diverse samples (e.g., adults, caregivers for a family member living with adults with HIV/AIDS, adults with mild traumatic injury) [ 40 ], but as we mentioned, psychometric studies purposively involving parents have not been conducted so far, to the best of our knowledge.…”

“…The validity of content and invariance between the Portuguese (448 students) and the Brazilian (1085 students) samples was satisfactory. However, a Brazilian-Portuguese adaptation of the instrument was recently done [ 40 ], in which consistency problems were identified in the subscales referring to first-order coping strategies.…”

Assessment of coping: a new french four-factor structure of the brief COPE inventory

“…Although the Brief COPE is an instrument that has been widely used in coping research worldwide, some publications previously performed surveys using different structures [9, 22] than the original Brief COPE version [7]. The authors provided structures with a different number of factors (eight [9], seven [22], five [23], and three [24–26] factors), explored in different sociocultural contexts [23, 26], and among various groups of individuals (healthy individuals, ill individuals [22, 25], and caregivers [23, 26]).…”

Examination of the Hierarchical Structure of the Brief COPE in a French Sample: Empirical and Theoretical Convergences

“…Although the Brief COPE is an instrument that has been widely used in coping research worldwide, some publications previously performed surveys using different structures [9,22] than the original Brief COPE version [7]. The authors provided structures with a different number of factors (eight [9], seven [22], five [23], and three [24][25][26] factors), explored in different sociocultural contexts [23,26], and among various groups of individuals (healthy individuals, ill individuals [22,25], and caregivers [23,26]).…”