Coping strategies are those behaviors and cognitive abilities used by people to cope or deal with demands of the internal and external environment that are perceived as stressful. They are established by people according to their situational context, and the objective is to determine the validity and reliability of the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI) a Spanish version of Cano Garcia, F.J.; Rodriguez Franco, L.; Garcia Martinez, J. (1989) in Panama’s surroundings.
The inventory addresses the conceptualization of coping according to Lazarus Richard S. from the Callista Roy’s nursing perspective.
This psychometric, descriptive and transactional study investigates theoretical and measurable aspects with a sampling by convenience to a random sample of 200 students of Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of Panama during final exams of the second semester of 2015. The inventory consists of 40 items, and a self-assessment of effectiveness. Validations were made considering 5 students per item, totaling the selected sample of 200. The analysis is performed with the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient (measuring internal consistency) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (measuring construct validity).
The results show a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,930. The factor analysis presents three dimensions: individual coping, seeks help in others, and represses and hides feelings. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy (KMO) was above 0,90. The Barlett sphericity test is significant (p-value <0,001; contrasting the null hypothesis: there are no relationships between variables).
The research concludes indicating that the validation and reliability of the scale is excellent for the case of Panama. It is considered as an important methodological contribution favoring further studies about the understanding of coping allowing to discover more about its meaning.