Coping among Students: Development and validation of an exploratory measure

Abstract

Students is a very specific population according to their manner to cope with stress. A coping questionnaire for students was developed and administered to 1100 French students at the beginning of the term (T1). Principal Component Analysis of responses, followed by varimax rotations, yielded three factors accounting for 50.5% of the total variance. Factors were identified as seeking social support, avoidance/emotion-focused coping and festive-addictive coping. Associations were observed between scores on these factors and a general coping scale (WCC-R), personal variables measured at the same time (T1), neuroticism, self-esteem, substance use, and four stress factors, as well as variables measured at the end of the term (T2), somatic symptoms, depressive symptoms, eating disorders, and life satisfaction. It would be very interesting to develop the students' personal competencies, so that they are learning how to adopt functional strategies of coping rather than of the harmful kind.