[The measurement of "coping". French translation and validation of the Vitaliano's scale (Vitaliano et al. 1985)].

Coping is currently defined as "the various cognitive or behavioral efforts intended to master or tolerate the internal or external demands which threaten or go beyond the resources of a subject "(Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The general objective of this work was to present the french version of a coping scale (Vitaliano et al., 1985) for the assessment of the different types of coping strategies which one can use when confronting an adversive event. Our population is composed of 501 adults (329 female and 172 males) of the age of 20 to 35 years. A Principal Component Analysis gave us a general factor of coping (12% V.T.) which gathers emotional focused strategies and problem focused strategies. The factorial analysis with varimax rotation confirmed the existence of 5 specific types of coping strategies. These are "solving problem" factor (9.4% V.T.), "avoidance with wishful thinking" factor (7.5% V.T.), "seeks social support" factor (6.5% V.T.), "positive reevaluation" factor (5.9% V.T.) and "self-blamed" (5.7% V.T.). These results allowed us to construct a valid questionnaire of 29 items measuring 5 types of coping strategies.