Brief Measure of Religious Coping

Abstract

The Brief Measure of Religious Coping (BMRC) is a concise, 14-item psychological scale designed to assess the frequency and intensity with which individuals employ religious beliefs and behaviors when encountering significant life stressors. Developed by Pargament and colleagues, the instrument is rooted in the psychometric differentiation between beneficial (Positive) and detrimental (Negative) forms of religious engagement during crisis. It requires respondents to reflect on a recent struggle and quantify their use of specific coping activities on a four-point Likert scale, thereby providing a rapid and reliable measure of spiritual adjustment.

Keywords

Religious Coping, Stressors, Spirituality, Positive Religious Coping, Negative Religious Coping, Pargament, Psychological Assessment, Brief Measure.

Authors

Kenneth I. Pargament, Brad W. Smith, Harold G. Koenig, Lisa Perez.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the BMRC is to efficiently quantify the distinct patterns of religious involvement used by individuals facing major life stressors. By utilizing a brief format, the scale is optimized for clinical and research environments where comprehensive assessment time is limited, yet a nuanced understanding of spiritual responses to adversity is necessary.

The instrument serves to differentiate between religious coping mechanisms that promote psychological resilience and well-being (e.g., finding spiritual meaning) and those that lead to distress or spiritual strain (e.g., feeling punished by God). This distinction is vital for predicting adjustment outcomes following trauma or illness.

Construct

The BMRC measures the complex construct of Religious Coping, which is defined as the process of utilizing sacred elements (such as God, faith, or religious community) to search for meaning, control, comfort, and transformation during stressful life events. The scale adheres to a bifactorial model, capturing two theoretically and empirically distinct dimensions:

• Positive Religious Coping: This subscale assesses mechanisms reflecting a secure and collaborative relationship with the divine, characterized by benevolent religious appraisals, seeking spiritual connection, and finding strength or meaning through faith.
• Negative Religious Coping: This subscale measures spiritual struggle, tension, conflict, or doubt concerning God, self, or the religious community. Examples include divine struggle, feeling abandoned, or attributing events to the devil. Negative coping is consistently associated with heightened psychological vulnerability and poorer mental health outcomes.

Validity

The validity of the BMRC is established through its origin as a short form of the extensive RCOPE scale, ensuring robust content validity across the spectrum of religious coping behaviors. Construct validity is supported by the clear factor structure which successfully isolates Positive and Negative Coping as separate, measurable constructs.

Furthermore, studies demonstrate strong criterion validity. Positive Religious Coping is empirically linked to beneficial psychological outcomes, including increased life satisfaction, lower levels of depression, and improved adjustment to chronic illness. Conversely, Negative Religious Coping consistently correlates highly with indicators of psychological distress, increased anxiety, and greater difficulty in adjusting to major life changes, confirming the differential predictive utility of the two subscales.

Reliability

The BMRC demonstrates acceptable to strong psychometric reliability, primarily assessed through internal consistency. Research frequently reports satisfactory Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for both the Positive and Negative Coping subscales, indicating that the items within each subscale reliably measure their respective constructs.

While the Positive Religious Coping subscale often shows slightly higher internal consistency, both factors meet standard psychometric thresholds for reliable measurement in research contexts. The instrument’s stability is also supported by adequate test-retest reliability over short intervals, confirming that the scale provides consistent measurement of an individual’s religious coping style in response to a specific life stressor.

Factor Analysis

Both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) conducted on the BMRC items confirm a stable and theoretically sound two-factor structure. This bifactorial model aligns perfectly with Pargament’s conceptualization of Religious Coping being composed of orthogonal (independent) positive and negative dimensions.

The first factor is defined by items 1 through 7, which load heavily onto the Positive Religious Coping dimension. The second factor is defined by items 8 through 14, which reflect the distinct dimension of Negative Religious Coping. This clear separation confirms that the scale successfully measures spiritual struggle as a construct separate from spiritual collaboration or support.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire, Psychological Assessment Tool

Format: 14 items rated on a 4-point Likert scale (0 = not at all, 1 = somewhat, 2 = quite a bit, 3 = a great deal).

Language Available: English (Original), widely used in translated versions across international studies.

Population Group: Individuals experiencing or having recently experienced significant life stress, trauma, or medical crisis.

Age Group: Adolescents and Adults (typically ages 16 and older).

Population Details: Applicable across various religious denominations, requiring only that the respondent self-identify as engaging in some form of religious or spiritual practice. Used extensively in populations dealing with medical illness, bereavement, and post-traumatic stress.

Test Methodology: Respondents are instructed to focus specifically on a recent struggle in their life and rate how much they used the listed activities in coping with that particular event. Scores are calculated by summing the items for the two distinct subscales (Positive and Negative).

Keywords

Psychometrics, Spiritual Struggle, Coping Mechanisms, Mental Health, Stress Management, RCOPE, Factor Structure, Religious Coping.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Information not provided in source material)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Information not provided in source material)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Information not provided in source material)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The BMRC is based on the foundational research published in 1998 by Pargament and colleagues. As a measure derived from the RCOPE, it is generally available for non-commercial academic research and educational use without a fee. However, researchers are strongly advised to contact the primary author (Kenneth I. Pargament) or consult the original publication for definitive guidance regarding permissions and commercial applications.

Reference’s

Pargament, K. I., Smith, B. W., Koenig, H. G., & Perez, L. (1998). Patterns of positive and negative coping with major life stressors. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 710-724.

Additional Resources:

• http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1518&context=doctoral
• http://hpq.sagepub.com/content/9/6/713.short
• The original PDF documentation for the spirituality assessment, which includes this scale, can be downloaded here: http://www.afterdeployment.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/assessment-tools/spirituality-assessment.pdf

Items of the Brief Measure of Religious Coping

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.