Development of a measure of coping acts and processes

Within the field of stress research there have been investigations of both the nature of stress itself and how individuals cope with stress. Based on a cognitive phenomenological conceptualization of stress, this study developed the conceptual premise that both coping acts and coping processes must be investigated. In order to investigate coping acts and coping processes the most effective method of assessing coping acts and processes must be identified. Therefore, this study proposed to identify the most effective self-report measure of coping acts and processes in the work context. The major research questions investigated were what is the most effective self-report technique, the structured questionnaire or the open-ended interview, and what is the best temporal orientation of the data, retrospective or present. This study then analyzed the most effective method for collecting coping acts and processes of 49 professional working women coping with work related stress. The 49 women were interviewed and filled out the Coping Checklist relative to both retrospective and present stressful work situations. There were multiple data gathering sessions (a maximum of three), two weeks apart, directed towards gathering present coping data. The purpose of the multiple interviews was to track the participants' coping process. Results generally confirmed that the content valid Coping Checklist, a structured questionnaire, was a more effective self-report technique than the Coping Interview, an open-ended interview. Results did not confirm that present coping data was more useful than retrospective coping data, but post hoc analysis revealed that more coping acts were reported for present stressful situations and that more than 80% of these coping acts were ordered into a coping pattern. It was concluded that individuals had difficulty ordering coping acts, which is essential to developing coping pattern and processes, and therefore a new model for ordering coping acts was proposed for future research.