A Critical Appraisal of the Evidence Supporting the Factor Structure of Extant Coping Instruments

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Coping instruments are widely used to measure coping strategies in adults.
• Over 10,000 papers utilize these instruments, but few validate their psychometric properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the psychometric evidence supporting the factor structure of commonly used coping instruments.
• To identify shortcomings in existing validation studies based on modern psychometric standards.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a literature search to identify nine routinely used coping instruments.
• Reviewed 39 studies that investigated the psychometric validity of these instruments.
• Assessed adherence to current psychometric recommendations, including data handling and factor analysis techniques.

Main Results:

• The majority of validation studies failed to establish internal validity, often neglecting the ordinal nature of data.
• Exploratory factor analysis methods used for factor retention showed low accuracy.
• Confirmatory factor analysis reported inadequate model fit statistics, leading to conflicting results.

Conclusions:

• Current validation practices for coping instruments are insufficient.
• There is a critical need to improve psychometric validation methodologies in coping research.
• Recommendations are provided for enhancing future validation studies to ensure reliable and valid measurement of coping strategies.