JCS

by Suresh Panthee
(Tokyo, Japan)

Original Text: JCS

The Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS) was developed by Jalowiec which is based on Lazarus and Folkman theory of stress, appraisal, and coping. It is an appropriate tool for adult of all ages including adolescents with variety of health and illness state from relatively minor to life-threatening and it has been used in several studies of MI patients. The foundation of the original JCS was the bi-dimensional representation of problem-focused versus emotion-focused coping methods developed by Lazarus. Therefore, in this study, original version of Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS) was used to assess coping strategies, which consists of 40 items. The 40 items are divided into two types: problem-focused coping, comprising of 15 items (score ranging from 15-75), and emotion-focused coping, comprising of 25 items (score ranging from 25-125). Problem-focused coping aims to make direct changes in a stressful situation, whereas emotion-focused coping seeks to ameliorate emotions associated with the problem. Respondents were asked to estimate how often they used the listed ways to cope with stressful situation regarding their illness after MI, by selecting one number for each coping method. All responses were rated using 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always.
The JCS is also a well established instrument. Its content validity was tested by the systematic manner of tool development, by the use of large number of items including diverse coping behaviors. The reliability coefficient of total coping score was .79, problem-focused coping score was .85, and emotion-focused coping score was .86. However, when doing the factor analysis of this original version of JCS, there were some non significant items with lowest agreement and authors suggested for at least one more additional factor for those items which was named as evasive coping. In this study, the researcher used only two types of coping namely problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping.
Before using this instrument in Nepalese context, it was translated into Nepali language by the use of back translation technique with the help of three experts. When analyzing each item, item no. 31 “meditate or use yoga or biofeedback or mind over the matter” was changed to meditate or use yoga only to suit in Nepalese people. The higher score denoted more often use of coping strategies. Since problem-focused coping strategies and emotion-focused coping strategies had different number of items it could not be used to compare the problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping strategies.

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Revised Text:

The Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS) was developed by Jalowiec, based on the Lazarus and Folkman theory of stress, appraisal, and coping. It is an appropriate tool for adults of all ages, including adolescents with a variety of health and illness states, from relatively minor to life-threatening. It has been used in several studies of MI patients.

The foundation of the original JCS was the bi-dimensional representation of problem-focused, versus emotion-focused, coping methods developed by Lazarus. In this study, the original version of the Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS), which consists of 40 items, was used to assess coping strategies. The 40 items are divided into two types: problem-focused coping, comprising 15 items (scores ranging from 15-75), and emotion-focused coping, comprising 25 items (scores ranging from 25-125).

Problem-focused coping aims to make direct changes in a stressful situations, whereas emotion-focused coping seeks to ameliorate emotions associated with the problem. Respondents were asked to estimate how often they used the listed ways to cope with stressful situations regarding their illness after MI, by selecting one number for each coping method. All responses were rated using the 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always.

The JCS is also a well established instrument. Its content validity was tested by the systematic manner of tool development, using a large number of items, including diverse coping behaviors. The reliability coefficient of the total coping score was .79, the problem-focused coping score was .85, and emotion-focused coping score was .86.

However, when doing the factor analysis of this original version of JCS, there were some non-significant items with lowest agreement. The authors suggested at least one additional factor for those items, which was named as evasive coping. In this study, the researcher used only two types of coping, namely problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping.

Before using this instrument in Nepalese context, it was translated into the Nepali language by the use of the back translation technique, with the help of three experts. On analyzing each item, item no. 31 “meditate or use yoga or biofeedback or mind over the matter” was changed to "meditate or use yoga only", to suit Nepalese people.

The higher score denoted a more frequent use of coping strategies. Since problem-focused coping strategies and emotion-focused coping strategies had different numbers of items, it could not be used to compare the problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping strategies.

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