The measurement of coping in breast cancer patients

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Abstract
The feasibility of using the COPE Scale (Carver, Scheier and Weintraub, 1989) as a measure of coping with breast cancer was tested on a sample of 61 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer more than one year previously. Results showed that acceptance and positive reframing were the most common coping responses, replicating earlier research, but that overall the COPE was poor at discriminating between strategies. With the exception of positive reframing, all subscales correlated negatively with well‐being. Frequency of strategy use was negatively associated with well‐being, i.e. the more strategies used, the greater the distress. It was concluded that the abstract wording of some items plus a perceived lack of positive coping responses may have caused the questionnaire to be seen as somewhat irrelevant to the circumstances of this particular group of patients.

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