Brief RCOPE

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.