The Ways of Coping Checklist: Revision and Psychometric Properties

Abstract

This study examined the psychometric properties of the "original" seven factored scales derived by Aldwin et al. from Folkman and Lazarus' Ways of Coping Checklist (WCCL) versus a revised set of scales. Four psychometric properties were examined including the reproducibility of the factor structure of the original scales, the internal consistency reliabilities and intercorrelations of the original and the revised scales, the construct and concurrent validity of the scales, and their relationships to demographic factors. These properties were studied on three distressed samples: 83 psychiatric outpatients, 62 spouses of patients with Alzheimer's disease, and 425 medical students. The revised scales were consistently shown to be more reliable and to share substantially less variance than the original scales across all samples. In terms of construct validity, depression was positively related to the revised Wishful Thinking Scale and negatively related to the revised Problem-Focused Scale consistently across samples. Anxiety was also related to these scales, and in addition, it was positively related to the Seeks Social Support Scale across samples. The Mixed Scale was the only original scale that was consistently related to depression and anxiety across the three samples. Evidence for concurrent validity was provided by the fact that medical students in group therapy had significantly higher original and revised scale scores than students not participating in such groups. Both sets of scales were shown to be generally free of demographic biases.