Factor structure of the Brief COPE in a population from Australia and New Zealand exposed to a disaster.

AUSTRALIA; NEW Zealand

The Brief COPE is a widely used instrument to measure coping behaviours. However, the number of factors can vary across populations and the contexts in which they are utilised, raising concerns about the generalisability of the coping subscales from one study to another. The current study used participants who had experienced the Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand or the Queensland floods in Australia (N = 674), randomly divided into two equal groups. First, using principal components analysis (PCA), the following four coping factors were identified and explained 49% of the variance: problem-focused, emotion-focused, dysfunctional, and religious coping. Using the second group of participants, this factor structure was compared with previously published factor structures for the Brief COPE using confirmatory factor analysis and our disaster-affected sample. Using the published item parcels and factors, the best fit for our sample was the factors identified in our initial PCA, rather than that of other researchers, with some configurations having a poor fit or being inadmissible. Results indicate that the structure and item loadings for the Brief COPE do not generalise between studies and similarly named factors may include different items. Therefore, researchers should be mindful of the potential inconsistencies with the Brief COPE and the interpretation of coping behaviours across populations and contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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