Proactive Coping Poststroke: Psychometric Properties of the Utrecht Proactive Coping Competence Scale

Objective: To examine psychometric properties of the Utrecht Proactive Coping Competence scale (UPCC) and explore relations of proactive coping with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and characteristics of patients with stroke. Design: Cross-sectional study. Reliability and convergent validity, and associations with HRQOL and characteristics of patients with stroke were examined. Setting: Inpatient and outpatient settings of hospitals and rehabilitation centers in The Netherlands. Participants: Patients with stroke (N=55; mean age, 58.7 +/- 12.8y; mean months since stroke, 25.0 +/- 38.5). Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: UPCC, Utrecht Coping List (UCL), and the short Stroke Specific Quality of Life scale (SS-QOL-12). Results: The UPCC showed excellent reliability (Cronbach's alpha=.95) without floor/ceiling effects or skewed score distribution. Convergent validity was shown by moderate positive relations with the UCL subscale active problem solving (r=.38) and moderate negative relations with the UCL subscales passive reactions (r=-.50), avoidance (r=-.40), and expression of emotions (r=-.42). Correlations between the UPCC and HRQOL domains were moderate to strong (r=.48-.61) and stronger than those between UCL subscales and HRQOL domains. The only characteristic of patients with stroke associated with proactive coping was time after stroke (r=-.52). Conclusions: The UPCC appears reliable and valid for patients with stroke. Moreover, we found positive associations between proactive coping and HRQOL. Future research is recommended to confirm our results and to explore ways to enhance proactive coping in patients with stroke. (C) 2014 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine