COPING WITH MEDICAL THREAT - AN EVALUATION OF THE THREATENING MEDICALSITUATIONS INVENTORY (TMSI)

The Dutch Threatening Medical Situations Inventory (TMSI) has been dev eloped to measure cognitive confrontation ('monitoring') and cognitive avoidance ('blunting') within the domain of medical threat. It consis ts of four scenarios of threatening medical situations, followed by mo nitoring and blunting alternatives. Its psychometric properties are in vestigated in students (N = 123), dental (N = 80), HIV-(N = 42) and su rgery patients (N = 123). For both scales, internal consistencies prov ed to be satisfactory. Slight sex and age effects are found. Furthermo re, there is a strong situation effect: the scenario highest in contro llability shows relatively high monitoring and low blunting scores. Fa ctor structure is stable across samples and shows a good fit with the predicted factor solution. Both scales are found to converge and diver ge in a theoretically meaningful manner with a variety of coping style and anxiety measures. In two samples, a sample specific stress scenar io was added, but the psychometric qualities of such an extension shou ld not be taken for granted. In an additional sample of working people (N = 48) test-retest reliability proved to be good. It is concluded t hat the TMSI is a useful instrument for assessing cognitive confrontat ion and avoidance in medical patients. An English as well as a German translation are available. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.