J Korean Acad Child Health Nurs.  2009 Jul;15(3):271-281.

Development of a Coping Scale for Emergency Situations with Elementary School Students

• Kim SJ
• Lee JE
• Kang KA
• Song MK
• Lee SK
• Kim SH

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was conducted to develop an instrument to measure coping in emergency situations. METHODS: The process included construction of a conceptual framework, generation 60 primary items, verification of construct validity and extraction of final items. The 60 preliminary items were reviewed for content validity by seven experts and were tested to evaluate inter-item correlation coefficient by three groups of elementary school students. From November 1 to December 10, 2008, data were collected from 920 elementary school students according to residential characters (major city, small town, rural area). Item analysis, factor analysis with rotation Varimax and Cronbach's alpha were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: 1) There were 45 items in the final instrument categorized into 8 factors. 2) The factors were labeled as "Call for help and check" (8 items), "Care for common symptoms" (6 items), "Appropriate response for the situation" (5 items), "Evacuation" (6 items), "Care for tissue damage" (8 items), "Care for injury by heat, cold or foreign body" (6 items), "Offer help" (4 items) and "Rescue & escape" (2 items). 3) Cumulative percent of variance was 53.10% and eigen values ranged from 1.04 to 13.38. 4) Cronbach's alpha for the total was .943 and ranged from .527 to .869. CONCLUSION: Validity and reliability of the scale are confirmed in this study showing its utility for measuring coping in emergency situations with elementary school students. Utilization of the scale will also contribute to designing appropriate coping education programs for elementary school students.

Keyword

Coping behavior; Emergencies; Students

MeSH Terms

Adaptation, Psychological
Cold Temperature
Emergencies
Hot Temperature
Humans
Reproducibility of Results
Child Health