Raw versus relative scores in the assessment of coping strategies

Abstract

Raw scores (frequency of efforts) versus relative scores (percentage of efforts) were compared on the five scales of the revised Ways of Coping Checklist. It was hypothesized that, conditional on the source of and appraisal of a stressor, problem-focused coping should be inversely related and Wishful Thinking should be positively related to depression when relative scores were used but that raw problem-focused scores would be less clearly related to depression in such a way. It was further hypothesized that these relationships would hold for very diverse samples: psychiatric outpatients (n = 145), spouses of patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 66), and medical students (n = 185). Given the maladaptive status of the psychiatric outpatients, it was hypothesized that they would report more emotion-focused strategies and less problem-focused coping than the nonclinical samples and that these differences would be better observed using relative rather than raw scores. The hypotheses were generally supported.

Psychological adjustment to systemic sclerosis

“…Relative scores for the 8 WCCL-R subscales are reported in Table 2. As suggested by Vitaliano et a1 (36), relative scores were calculated by dividing the raw score for each subscale by the total raw score of all 8 subscales. Relative scores are thus percentages, and represent the emphasis placed on a particular type of coping relative to the other 7 types, rather than absolute amount of coping reported.…”

Stress in parents of children born very preterm is predicted by child externalising behaviour and parent coping at age 7 years

“…Responses are made on a 4-point Likert scale, from 0=does not apply/not used to 3=used a great deal. The established procedure 22 for converting raw scores to relative scores was used to control for the unequal number of items within the scales. This involved calculating the mean item score for each scale and dividing by the number of items in that scale, summing these averages, and dividing the average of each scale by the sum of the averages for all eight scales.…”

Coping e qualidade de vida em pacientes em lista de espera para transplante renal

“…(20) The items that comprise the JCS coping styles (21) The relative score was obtained by adding up the number of items marked with an "x", divided by the number of items contained in the subscale, called the middle score, and then dividing the middle score of each subscale by the sum of the total middle scores. (20,24) The highest score among the relative scores is considered the most used coping style for dealing with stressors.…”