Coping research emerged relatively late in psychology but has expanded rapidly. Reviews and bibliometric sources indicate a large and growing literature on coping in recent decades. Despite many different assessment tools developed since the 1970s, three core coping dimensions have been prominent across instruments: task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping. Task-oriented coping focuses on problem appraisal and solution seeking; emotion-oriented coping emphasizes emotional reactions and self-preoccupation; avoidance-oriented coping involves distancing, denial, or distraction from stressors.
The Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) was designed as an interindividual (dispositional) self-report measure to assess the three broad coping styles noted above. Its construction began from a large item pool and multiple waves of factor analysis. Iterative scale reduction produced a validated 48-item CISS comprising three 16-item subscales (Task, Emotion, Avoidance) that were supported across samples and across gender in the original validation work.
Short forms of established measures have become common to reduce administration time and participant burden, enabling researchers to assess multiple constructs more efficiently. For the CISS, a 21-item set (three 7-item scales) has circulated in applied research contexts. The 21 items were originally identified in the second edition of the CISS manual as suitable for a situation-specific form (CISS-SSC) and later repurposed by other investigators as a brief interindividual measure of general coping styles. Prior preliminary work supported this short form for assessing responses to routine stressors in some samples.
The current investigation examined the psychometric properties of the CISS short form (CISS-SF). Main objectives were to evaluate the factor structure, internal reliabilities, temporal stability (1- and 2-year test–retest), measurement invariance across gender and age, and preliminary convergent validity with personality and mental-health measures. The sample was described as a large longitudinal community-based adult sample who completed the coping measure on three separate occasions approximately one year apart. The provided source excerpt does not report the exact sample size or demographic breakdown in full detail.
Participants were community-based adults assessed longitudinally at three time points roughly one year apart. The CISS-SF assessed task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping with seven items per subscale (21 items total). Preliminary validity analyses used self-report measures of the Big Five personality traits and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Specific procedural details, exact sample size, and full measurement descriptions or administration procedures were not available in the provided excerpt.
Confirmatory factor analyses supported a three-factor model using the 21 CISS items. The three-factor solution (separating task, emotion, and avoidance-oriented coping) provided acceptable fit to the sample data. Importantly, the factor model was reported to be invariant across gender and age groups, indicating the same latent structure operated similarly in these subgroups within the dataset.
Internal reliabilities for the three CISS-SF scales were characterized as acceptable across multiple administrations and when examined by gender and age groups. Test–retest correlations over 1- and 2-year intervals were described as moderate, consistent with expectations for dispositional coping constructs that are reasonably stable but can vary over time. The excerpt does not include exact reliability coefficients, Cronbach’s alpha values, or the numerical test–retest correlations.
The authors conducted preliminary validity analyses examining relationships between the CISS-SF scales and self-reported Big Five personality traits as well as symptoms of depression and anxiety. The observed patterns of association were reported to be consistent with earlier research on coping—supporting construct-level validity of the short form—but precise correlation coefficients and statistical details were not provided in the source excerpt.
Overall, the study concludes that the 21-item CISS-SF can serve as a valid and reliable brief multidimensional measure of dispositional coping styles in community adult samples. The retained three-factor structure, measurement invariance across gender and age, acceptable internal consistency, and moderate temporal stability together support the utility of the short form for research contexts where shorter instruments are needed. Preliminary validity correlations with personality and mental-health measures were concordant with prior coping literature.
Limitations noted by inference from the excerpt include that some methodological and numerical details (for example, exact sample size, specific fit indices, and scale reliability coefficients) are not available in the provided portion of the source; readers should consult the full article for complete statistical reporting.
This work was published in PLOS ONE. The data used in the study are publicly available via Greo Evidence Insights. The authors reported no specific funding for the study and declared no competing interests. For full methodological and statistical detail, including sample characteristics and numeric results, refer to the original article and the data repository linked in the publication.