Validation of the Brief Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced (Brief COPE) inventory in people living with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam

Abstract

The Brief Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced (Brief COPE) inventory is one of the most widely used instruments in coping research; however, no study has evaluated the psychometric properties of the Brief COPE in the Vietnamese population. This study aimed to validate a culturally appropriate Vietnamese version of the Brief COPE for the evaluation of coping strategies in people living with HIV/AIDS in Vietnam. We translated the Brief COPE into Vietnamese, and it was self-administered among 1,164 HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy at a large HIV outpatient clinic in Hanoi between January 2019 and March 2020. Data on demographics and HIV-related information, depression and social support were also collected. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were conducted to assess construct validity. Content validity, internal consistency, and convergent validity were also assessed. The CFA of a 14-factor structure of the original Brief COPE revealed acceptable model fitness, but poor internal consistency for some subscales. In the subsequent EFA, we found a revised 26-item version which had a six-factor structure consisting of problem-solving, avoidance, humor, social support, religion, and substance use. The final CFA found that the model fitness of the revised scale with fewer factor structures was comparable to that of the original Brief COPE; the internal consistency of the revised scale was even better than that of the original scale. Furthermore, six factors of the revised scale showed anticipated associations with depression and social support.

Associations of Depressive Symptoms, COVID-19-Related Stressors, and Coping Strategies. A Comparison Between Cities and Towns in Germany

“…Fourth, some of the subscales of the Brief COPE showed questionable or poor reliability scores in our study (Cronbach's Alpha: 0.53-0.92). This has also been reported in other studies (51,52) and seems to be a general problem of the questionnaire, which is also reflected in the inconsistent factor structure of the Brief COPE (53). Fifth, although the propensity score matching has several advantages for examining the hypotheses and ensured comparability of our samples, the current dataset does not contain all participants and the representativeness of the two subsamples may have been altered especially in the city sample.…”

The Factor Structure of the Brief Cope: A Systematic Review

“…Three studies conducted a CFA followed by an EFA when poor fit was identified (Brasileiro et al, 2016; Matsumoto et al, 2020; Su et al, 2015). Two studies (Brasileiro et al, 2016; Matsumoto et al, 2020) used the original 14-factor structure translated to Portuguese and Vietnamese. Su et al (2015) used a previously established three and two-factor model translated into Chinese.…”

“…Su et al (2015) used a previously established three and two-factor model translated into Chinese. Two studies used a dispositional version (Brasileiro et al, 2016; Matsumoto et al, 2020) and one used an unspecified format (Su et al, 2015). No items or factors were removed a priori to analysis.…”

“…All studies reported CFAs with poor fit, which resulted in a subsequent EFA. Ultimately, a three-factor solution was identified by Su et al (2015) and six factors were identified by both Brasileiro et al (2016) and Matsumoto et al (2020) (refer to Online Supplementary Table 1).…”

Coping Strategies and Life Satisfaction among Romanian Emerging Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…There is a considerable amount of literature dedicated to testing The Brief COPE Inventory in different environment and countries. The Brief COPE scale was validated in different countries, such as Chile [53], China [57,59,60], Italy [61], France [52,62,63], Malaysia [58] Mexico [56], Serbia [64], Russia [44], Spain [65], Uruguay [50], USA [66], United Arab Emirates [67]; as well as different languages and dialects-Persian [68], Tunisian Arabic [69], Urdu [70], Vietnamese [71], Brazilian and Portuguese [49].…”