EVALUATION OF THE COPING - TRANSLATION AN D VALIDATION OF VITALIANO SCALE

Coping is currently defined as << the various cognitive or behavioral efforts intended to master or tolerate the internal or external demand s which treaten or go beyond the resources of a subject >> (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The general objective of this work was to present the french version of a coping scale (Vitaliano et al., 1985)for the asses sment of the different types of coping strategies which one can use wh en confronting an adversive event. Our population is composed of 501 a dults (329 female and 172 males) of the age of 20 to 35 years. A Princ ipal Component Analysis gave us a general factor of coping (12 % V.T.) which gathers emotional focused strategies and problem focused strate gies. The factorial analysis with varimax rotation confirmed the exist ence of 5 specific types of coping strategies. These are << solving pr oblem >> factor (9,4 % VT), << avoidance with wishful thinking >> fact or (7,5 % VT), << seeks social support >> factor (6,5 % VT), << positi ve reevaluation >> factor (5,9 % VT) and << self-blamed >> (5,7 % VT). These results allowed us to construct a valid questionnaire of 29 ite ms measuring 5 types of coping strategies.