Escala de coping religioso-espiritual (Escala CRE): elaboração e validação de construto

The spiritual/religious coping (SRC) refers to the way people use faith to cope with stress and has been associated with improvements in qu ality o f life a nd phy sical and mental health. The aim of this article was to d escribe the e laboration and construct validation p rocess of the Spiritual/Religious Coping Scale (SRCOPE Scale), the first i nstrument t o measure SRC in Brazil, based on RCOPE Scale (Pargament & cols., 2000). The study comprehended two phases: (1) translation, adaptation and pilot test (N=50); (2) field test (N=616) and construct validation. Factorial, internal consistency and correlation analysis indicated SRCOPE Scale a s a valid and reliable instrument. It assesses both positives and negatives aspects of SRC, resulting in a comprehensive, functional oriented, theoretical and empirically based, and clinically meaningful instrument, useful to different scientific research areas.