The Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (COPE) inventory is a multi-dimensional tool that assess a person’s coping strategy to deal with stress. The COPE inventory has three components:
- Problem-focused coping, which measures active coping, planning, suppression of completing activities, restraint coping, and seeking of instrumental social support.
- Emotion-focused coping, which measures seeking of emotional social support, positive reinterpretation, acceptance, denial, and turning to religion.
- Other coping responses, which measures focus on and venting of emotions, behavioral disengagement, and mental disengagement.
Instructions on how to score each statement is in the document via link below. Each statement in the inventory is tied to a specific coping strategy under problem-focused, emotion-focused or other of the coping responses measures. After tallying the answers, the scores will show you which form of coping strategy you are more engaged in. Please note that there are questions about substance use. Parents and caregivers should use discretion on whether or not they want to introduce the tool to their older teens.
Link to the COPE Inventory tool – http://www.midss.org/sites/default/files/cope.pdf
For more information on the COPE Inventory or other scales to measure coping strategies, visit https://positivepsychology.com/coping-scales-brief-cope-inventory/.
