Wege religiöser Bewältigung: Deutsche Adaptation und Validierung des RCOPE

Background Religious beliefs and attitudes can constitute a resource in coping with critical life events. To date, in German-speaking countries, only one-dimensional scales measuring religiosity have been established in the assessment of coping with illness (Klauer & Filipp, 1993). Yet, the mentioned diagnostic instruments do not take into account the different dimensions of religiosity, which also constitutes one of the five dimensions of Posttraumatic Growth (Maercker & Langner, 2001). To facilitate a more thorough study of functional and dysfunctional aspects of religiosity, Pargament at al. (1998, 2000) developed the RCOPE, an extensive, multidimensional inventory of religious coping styles. In addition, the Brief-RCOPE, a brief screening tool consisting of 14 items measuring positive and negative religious coping was derived. Through the adaptation and validation of both US-American measurements into German, the present publication aimed to facilitate the differentiated study of religious coping styles in the German-speaking area. Methods For reasons of efficiency, nine out of 17 scales of the RCOPE were chosen for adaptation. Selected scales were chosen on the basis of validation studies investigating the original instrument. The 14 items of the Brief-RCOPE scale were adopted in full. The statistical analysis included N = 210 college students who were coping with a significant negative life event. Further measurements included in the present study were the “Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale” (German Version by Herrmann et al., 1995), “Symptom-Checkliste SCL-90” (Franke, 1995), and the German version of the “Posttraumatic Growth Inventory” (Maercker & Langner, 2001). Results The scales of the German RCOPE (i.e. “proactive trust in God’s support”, “doubting God’s power”) showed satisfactory to good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .72 - .88). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted using oblique rotation and yielded factors largely consistent with the results of the original RCOPE. An 8-factor solution was initially derived, but a strong first factor was divided into two with regard to contents. Therefore, the final version consists of 9 factors corresponding to Pargament’s factor solution. Almost all subscales were correlated with Posttraumatic Growth (r max = .62, p < .01). Regression analyses were conducted to determine the unique variance in Posttraumatic Growth accounted for by religious coping. Religious coping explained 37% of the variance of Posttraumatic Growth. Positive as well as negative aspects of religious coping were more frequently used in a subsample of active church laypersons. The subscales of the Brief-RCOPE showed excellent (positive religious coping, Cronbach’s α = .91) and moderate (α = .76) internal consistency, respectively. Functional strategies of religious coping were moderately correlated with Posttraumatic Growth (r = .49), but dysfunctional religious coping was also weakly associated with Posttraumatic Growth (r = .29). Both subscales of the Brief-RCOPE were weakly correlated with anxiety and depression. Conclusion The German adaptation of the RCOPE provides an extensive measure of multidimensional religious coping. There is evidence of high reliability, and factors of religious coping show transcultural stability. Criterion validity was demonstrated in different values of religious coping in the subsamples, according to expectations. Relevant correlations of religious coping with Posttraumatic Growth confirmed convergent validity. The validity of the Brief-RCOPE as a screening tool should be supplemented in further studies including groups of patients.