The brief COPE: a factorial structure for incarcerated adults

ABSTRACT

Research suggests that coping deficits play an important role in understanding offender behavior. The present study examines the use of the Brief COPE among a sample of 377 federally incarcerated Canada inmates. Using principal axis factor analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis, an eight factor structure was supported: (1) Support Seeking (α =.86); (2) Acceptance (α =.76); (3) Disengagement (α =.75); (4) Active Coping (α =.64); (5) Substance Use (α =.90); (6) Humor (α =.78); (7) Religion (α =.84); and (8) Self-Blame (α =.77). Factors were comprised of two to four items, with five that did not load onto any factor. Findings indicate that the Brief COPE constitutes a short, accessible, and validated measure of coping styles that is suitable for use with offender populations.

KEYWORDS:

• Brief COPE
• offender populations
• confirmatory factor analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Data were collected for large-scale national studies on self-injurious behavior in federal offenders (see Power, 2011; Power & Beaudette, 2014; Power & Usher, 2011 for more information). The current study used only a portion of the data collected.

2. Typically polychoric correlations are favored over Pearson correlations when ordinal data are analyzed, yet polychoric estimates rely upon the assumption that ordinal variables are a product of bivariate normal distributions. Since histogram inspections revealed non-normal distributions, Pearson’s correlations were preferred (Baglin, 2014).

3. A path diagram of the final confirmatory factor model was also estimated but omitted from the manuscript due to space limitations. This diagram is available upon request.