Assessing perceived ability to cope with trauma: A multi-group validity study of a 7 item coping self-efficacy scale

Aim of the present study was to examine the construct validity of the trauma-related coping self-efficacy (CSE) scale. While assessing the psychometric properties of this 20-item scale among four different samples (514 victims of disaster, 1325 bereaved individuals, 512 victims of acute critical incidents, 169 severe burn victims), we found no measurement equivalence across groups. A shortened version was composed using only those items that were applicable to all types of potentially traumatic events (PTEs). In contrast to the CSE-20, the CSE-7 has a robust factor structure; factor structure and factor loadings were similar across study samples, indicating that it measured the same construct across different PTEs. These results offer strong support for cross-event construct validity of the CSE-7. Associations of the CSE-7 with posttraumatic stress symptoms showed the same pattern as with the CSE-20, indicating that the reduction in items did not diminish the scales’ power to predict posttraumatic stress.