Abstract

Introduction: Assessing reliability and validity of Adolescents Coping Scale (ACS) was in-vestigated.

Method: 1832 male and female high school students were selected randomly and assessed by the 80-items Adolescents Coping Scale and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ- 28). Factor analysis was used for internal consistency (α) and data concurrent validity, and reliability and validity of the scale was determined.

Results: There were 18 main strategies extracted from the ACS. The 18 strategies were cate-gorized as 3 main styles. The overall reliability of ACS was 0.87 and the reliability of produc-tive coping, referring to others, and non productive styles were respectively 0.82, 0.82 and 0.81. Validation results showed that productive coping and referring to others had a significant posi- tive association with mental health, while the non-productive coping style had a significant negative association with mental health.

Conclusion: The Adolescents Coping Scale (ACS) is valid and reliable for assessing coping strategies and coping style.