Psychometric properties of a hurricane coping self-efficacy measure

This brief report describes the psychometric properties of an instrument de sign ed to measure Hurricane Coping Self-Efficacy (HCSE). Survivors of Hurr icane Andrew (n = 165) and Hurricane Opal (n = 63) completed the HCSE and a ssessments of optimism, social support, distress, and resource loss. Princi pal components factor analyses revealed a unidimensional structure for die HCSE. Internal consistency of the HCSE was strong. In both samples, HCSE wa s positively associated with optimism and social support, but negatively as sociated with general psychological distress, trauma related distress, and resource loss. Finally hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that t he HCSE explained a significant amount of experimental variance for intrusi ve thoughts and avoidance after controlling for social support, lost resour ces, and optimism.