Brief RCOPE Religious Coping Scale
Also known as: Brief RCOPE, RCOPE-14
The Brief RCOPE, developed by Pargament and colleagues (1998), is a 14-item measure that distinguishes between positive and negative religious coping strategies that individuals employ when facing major life stressors. Derived from the longer 105-item RCOPE, the Brief RCOPE captures how people use faith, prayer, spiritual reframing, and community support to manage illness, loss, and adversity, while also identifying religiously-based distress responses (e.g., spiritual anger, perception of abandonment by God). It has become a standard measure in health psychology, particularly in research on coping with serious illness, grief, and trauma.
Read the full method
Sign in with a free account to read this section.
Method map
The neighbourhood of related methods — select a node to explore.
When to use it
Use in any clinical setting where patients are managing serious illness, loss, trauma, or major life change. Essential in chaplaincy, palliative care, and hospice settings. Valuable in mental health care to assess spiritual coping resources and identify spiritual struggles contributing to depression or anxiety. Appropriate in research examining relationships between religious coping and health outcomes, treatment response, or recovery from illness. Less suitable for populations for whom religion is not salient; for secular patients, assess existential and secular coping strategies instead.
Strengths & limitations
- Clear distinction between adaptive and maladaptive religious response: separates positive coping (which aids recovery) from negative coping (which complicates it), allowing targeted intervention.
- Brevity: 14 items (vs. 105-item full RCOPE) is feasible in busy clinical settings, yet maintains psychometric integrity.
- Strong empirical support: extensive research demonstrates that positive religious coping predicts better mental health and health outcomes, while negative religious coping predicts depression, anxiety, and reduced quality of life.
- Clinical actionability: scores directly inform treatment planning; high negative coping scores indicate need for spiritual counseling, chaplaincy, or meaning-centered therapy.
- Self-report limitations: patients may endorse socially desirable positive coping strategies or minimize religious struggle due to shame.
- Cultural variation in religious expression: some traditions encourage emotional expression of religious doubt or anger; labeling this 'negative coping' may pathologize culturally normative behavior.
- Temporal dynamics of religious struggle: negative religious coping in early grief or trauma processing may be normative rather than pathological; longitudinal assessment necessary to distinguish.
- No assessment of religious content: the scale measures coping style (prayer, reframing, support) without assessing the theological content of beliefs (e.g., whether the patient's theological framework is comforting or punitive).
Frequently asked
Is 'anger at God' captured in the negative coping subscale?
Yes, items like 'Felt punished by God' and 'Wondered whether God had abandoned me' capture spiritual anger and abandonment themes. However, transient anger at God in early grief is normative. Concern arises when anger is chronic, fused with guilt or hopelessness, or associated with clinical depression. Assess trajectory and mood state to differentiate healthy processing from spiritual distress.
What should I do if a patient scores high on both positive and negative coping?
This pattern indicates active spiritual struggle. The patient is trying to maintain faith while experiencing significant doubt or anger. This is common in bereavement, trauma, and serious illness. Explore whether the struggle is time-limited and growth-promoting (normal) or chronic and demoralizing (concerning). Consider referral to a chaplain or spiritual counselor for accompaniment through the struggle. Do not automatically assume pathology; many patients grow spiritually through wrestling with faith.
Can the Brief RCOPE be used with non-religious patients?
The Brief RCOPE is designed for religious populations. Non-religious patients may score very low on all items or may experience the questions as irrelevant. For secular patients, assess existential coping (meaning-making, values-based living, social connection) using secular coping measures or open-ended interview. Do not force religious framing onto secular worldviews.
How do I score the Brief RCOPE if my version uses 4-point vs. 1-4 coding?
Some versions code 0–3 ('Not at all' to 'A great deal'), others code 1–4. Subscale ranges differ accordingly (0–21 vs. 7–28). Check your manual. Use the same coding consistently within a study. When comparing to published norms, ensure coding is aligned; some papers report mean scores (0–3 scale) rather than raw sums, making comparison easier.
Sources
- Pargament, K. I., Smith, B. W., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. (1998). Patterns of positive and negative religious coping with major life stressors. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37(4), 710–724. DOI: 10.2307/1388152 ↗
- Pargament, K. I., Feuille, J., & Burdzy, D. (2011). The Brief RCOPE: Current psychometric status of a short measure of religious coping. Religions, 2(1), 51–76. DOI: 10.3390/rel2010051 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). Brief RCOPE Religious Coping Scale. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/psychology-of-religion/brief-religious-coping-scale
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- DSESPsychology Of Religion↔ compare
- DURELPsychology Of Religion↔ compare
- FACIT-SpPsychology Of Religion↔ compare
- SBIPsychology Of Religion↔ compare