Initial Evidence for a Brief Measure of Buddhist Coping in the United States

Abstract

Although the field of spiritual coping has greatly expanded in recent years, there is no short scale of Buddhist coping as there is for the Abrahamic religions. The goal of the present study is to create the Brief BCOPE, a 15-item scale of Buddhist coping based on a study of 860 Buddhist participants across the United States. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provide preliminary evidence of the construct validity of the Brief BCOPE, and data are presented suggesting potential convergent, discriminant, criterion, and incremental validity for the scale. Although there are limitations to the study, the present research suggests that the Brief BCOPE might provide an efficient means of assessing Buddhist coping in applied and research settings.