Reliability and validity of the brief COPE scale among offenders in china

The Brief Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (B-COPE) Scale is a self- completed questionnaire measuring coping strategies, which contains 14 subscales. In the present study, the B-COPE Scale Chinese version were validated among 282 male offenders selected from a medium security prison in China. The results showed that internal consistencies ranged from 0.51-0.90. Exploratory Factor Analysis yielded eight factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, which together accounted for 61.98% of the variance in responding which was generally consistent with the original B-COPE scale. Significant correlation was found between the mean adaptive(/maladaptive) coping scores of the B-COPE and the mean positive(/negative) coping scores of Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ). The Chinese version B-COPE has satisfactory reliability and validity, and can be applied in Chinese offenders