The Essen Coping Questionnaire

(ECQ) in „public domain“

Gabriele Helga Franke & Melanie Jagla
University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal,
Germany
Aberdeen, August 2016
The Increase in Chronic Illness 2

• Multifactorial origin
• Taking a long-term course
• Often being progressive
• Having multiple restricting physical and psychosocial
effects
• High prevalence for mental comorbidity
• High psychosocial need for communication

Bengel et al. (2003); Koch et al. (2011)

Coping with Chronic Illness 3

• Assessment of how to cope with a disease, in physical

diseases, and their treatment can lead to a higher
compliance, adjustment and quality of life

• Coping with disease,

defined as the thoughts and behaviours used to manage
the internal and external demands of chronic illness,
has been a focus of medical and health psychology for four
decades

Härter et al. (2000, 2002); Mayer & Filipp (2002)

The Essen Coping Questionnaire (ECQ) 4

• This study proves the applicability and the

psychometric properties of the Essen Coping
Questionnaire (ECQ)
• Developed 1995
• First published 2000
• In public domain 2016
• The ECQ is a self-report questionnaire that assesses a
person’s coping efforts on an emotional, cognitive and
behavioural level

Franke & Jagla (2016)

ECQ – 9 Domains with 5 items each 5

APC - Acting, problem-oriented coping

DSP - Distance & self-promotion
ISE - Information seeking & exchange of experiences
TWD - Trivialisation, wishful thinking & defence
DP - Depressive processing
WAH - Willingness to accept help
ASS - Active search for social integration
TMC - Trust in medical care
FIS - Finding of inner stability
 ECQ – Sample Description N=1,815 6

Group N: Group G:
Group A:
Chronic Mixed
Attributes Chronic Stat. in-
renal sample of ∑
ophthalmic ference
insufficient chronic
patients
patients patients
Sample size 555 529 731 1.815
Gender
Male 238 (42.9%) 298 (56.3%) 351 (48%) 887 (48.9%) X² = 19.97
Female 317 (57.1%) 231 (43.7%) 380 (52%) 928 (51.1%) p< .0001
Age
Average age 48.2 ±15.5 F = 56.31
53.8 ±14.1 46.7 ±13.1 45.1 ±16.9
in years (16-86) p< .0001
 Results of Scale Analyses 7
ECQ scales α Gen- Age Corre-
der lations
APC Active, problem oriented coping .80
DSP Distance & self-promotion .64
ISE Information seeking & exchange of .79 ♀⇑
experiences
TWD Trivialisation, wishful thinking and defence .51 Old ⇑
DP Depressive processing .74 Young ⇑ Distress
WAH Willingness to accept help .65
ASS Active search for social integration .78 Young ⇑ Support
TMC Trust in medical care .65 ♀⇑
FIS Finding of inner stability .65 Old ⇑
Results: Factorial Validity 8

• Explorative factor analyses (subsequent Varimax

rotation) supported a 5-factor-solution, explaining 46% of
variance

I Social support
II Trust and drive
III Search for information and meaning
IV Depressive trivialising processing
V Mistrust and retreat
Nine a priori scales Five New Domains
ASS Active search for social integration (5/5) I Social
WAH Willingness to accept help (4/5) support
DSP Distance & self-promotion (2/5) (11)
TMC Trust in medical care (3/5) II Trust &
APC Acting, problem oriented coping (5/5) drive (11)
DSP Distance & self-promotion (2/5)
FIS Finding of inner stability (1/5)

ISE Information seeking & exchange of experiences (5/5) III Search for
FIS Finding of inner stability (2/5) information &
WAH Willingness to accept help (1/5) meaning (8)
DP Depressive processing (5/5) IV Depressive
TWD Trivialisation, wishful thinking & defence (3/5) trivialising
processing (8)
TMC (No) Trust in medical care (2/5) V Mistrust &
FIS Finding of inner stability (1/5) retreat (4)
TWD Trivialization, wishful thinking & defence (1/5)
 Results: Normative Data 10
• The mean value Scale M ± Stanine Score
Conf RCI
per patient has APC Acting, problem-oriented coping 2.24 0.88 2 2
little significance 1.96 0.78
DSP Distance and self-promotion 2 3
and therefore 1.42 0.93
ISE Information seeking and 2 2
should be exchange of experiences
transformed into TWD Trivialisation, wishful thinking 1.22 0.71 3 3
stanine scores and defence
DP Depressive Processing 0.71 0.70 2 2
• Normalization WAH Willingness to accept help 1.48 0.76 2 3
was performed in ASS Active search for social 1.93 0.89 2 2
the complete integration
2.46 0.79
TMC Trust in medical care 2 3
analysis sample of
1.32 0.81
N = 1,815 FIS Finding of inner stability 2 3
 Results: Replicability was proven in a
sample of neurological rehabilitation 11
patients (n = 48)
Scale p<

9 APC Acting, problem- .02

oriented coping

8 DSP Distance and self- .01

promotion
7
ISE Information seeking .05
and exchange of
Stanine-Scores (1-9)

6 experiences

5 TWD Trivialisation, -
wishful thinking and
defence
4
DP Depressive Processing -
3
WAH Willingness to .03
accept help
2
ASS Active search for .001
1 social integration

TMC Trust in medical .0001

care

FIS Finding of inner .04

T1 Admission T2 Dismissal stability
Utilisation in German speaking
countries 12

Ophthalmology
• Visual impairment: Franke et al., 2003
• Uveitis: Schütte et al., 2004
Transplantation medicine
• Kidney: Bernhardt et al., 2010; Franke, 2010; Jagla et al.
2009
• Kidney: Wick et al., 2015
• Hand: Hautz et al., 2010; Kumnig et al., 2012, 2014
Utilisation in German speaking
countries 13

COPD & nicotine dependence: Vaske et al., 2015, 2016;

Metz, 2004
Oncological patients: Berend, 2005
Inpatient gynaecology: Jagla et al., 2012, 2013
Patients with polycystic ovary syndrome: Jauca et al., 2010
HIV carriers: Jagla et al., 2014; Ronel, 2003
Rheumatic diseases: Vollmann et al., 2016
Neurological patients: Müller et al., 2014
Somatoform disorders: Hölig, 2014
Versions in different languages 14

• There are published versions in

German – English – Turkish
• All colleagues are asked to support translations of the
method into further languages!

• Factorial validity has to be researched more specifically

using confirmatory approaches in the middle term
• Merging several scales or item groups to a smaller
number of scales is possible
 http://www.psychometrikon.de
Email: gabriele.franke@hs-magdeburg.de

Thank you for your

kind attention!
M Jagla & GH Franke