Empirical subgroups of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire-Revised: a multisample study

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Pain Management
• Quantitative Psychology

Background:

• Chronic pain affects a significant portion of the population.
• Understanding coping mechanisms is crucial for effective pain management.
• Previous research has not identified distinct subgroups of chronic pain patients based on specific coping strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the dimensions of coping using the revised Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ-R) via factor analysis.
• To conduct cluster analysis on these factors to identify distinct patient subgroups.
• To explore empirically derived subgroups of chronic pain patients based on CSQ-R coping strategies.

Main Methods:

• Factor analysis was performed on data from 419 chronic low back pain patients and 556 mixed chronic pain patients.
• Cluster analysis was used to identify subgroups based on the derived coping factors.
• Reliability of factors and clusters was established across both samples.

Main Results:

• Two primary factors, cognitive coping and distraction, emerged consistently across both samples.
• Factor solutions accounted for a substantial portion of the variance (67.1% and 69.1%).
• Three distinct subgroups were identified: high cognitive coping, low overall coping, and frequent catastrophizing/distraction.

Conclusions:

• This study is the first to report empirically derived subgroups using CSQ or CSQ-R scores.
• The identified clusters demonstrated significant differences in pain, psychological distress, and physical functioning.
• These findings validate the distinctness and clinical relevance of the identified coping strategy subgroups.