“Mom, dad, I can handle this!”: development of the coping inventory for children and adolescents during the pandemic lockdown

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Coping Inventory for Children and Adolescents during the Pandemic Lockdown (CICAP-11), that assesses coping strategies employed by children and adolescents when faced with pandemic-related home confinement. The CICAP-11 and other measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms were completed online by 467 children’s parents between the ages of 3 and 18 (45.4% female). The development of the inventory was based on relevant previous studies and expert criteria. Using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM), the factor structure was found to have three factors: task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping strategies, measured by 11 items. The subscales showed good reliability and evidence of validity. This research provides initial evidence of the CICAP-11, indicating that it may be useful for clinicians and researchers in identifying and addressing coping strategies used by children and adolescents when dealing with pandemics.

KEYWORDS:

• Pandemic-related quarantine
• coping response scale
• COVID-19
• children
• adolescents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The participants of this study did not give consent for their data to be shared publicly, so data is not available.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund (PSI2017-85493-P).