COPING STRATEGIES WITH DEPRESSION - AN AN ALYSIS OF THEIR FREQUENCY AND UTILITY BY USING THE COPING INVENTORY OF DEPRESSION (CID)

The Coping inventory oi Depression (CID, Ring y Vazquez, 1993) is a se lf-report questionnaire aimed to measure the coping strategies that pe ople use to cope with depression. The CID provide: information both on the Frequency and the Utility of the coping strategies. it also provi des information concerning the types of depressive symptoms that subje cts exhibit when depressed. A factor analysis showed that the OD struc ture is rather heterogeneous (13 factors explained 58% of the total va riance). The internal consistency of the factors (Cronbach's alpha) ra nged from 0.36 to 0.79. in regard to the: comparison between the frequ ency of use and;he perceived utility oi each coping factor, our result s showed some interesting discrepancies Whereas for some strategies, t heir frequency scores are higher than their utility scores (e.g., Eati ng, ignoring the situation, Solution seeking, or intentional distracti on) for some others, their frequency scores are tower than their utili ty scores (e.g., Recreational activities, Medicines/Experts, or Expres sion/Communication). This finding reveals the importance of assessing both the frequency and the perceived efficacy of the coping strategies , a topic often neglected in the literature. Finally, we discuss both the clinical and research implications of this new instrument.