Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations

Use the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations to assess clients for coping skills focused on Distraction and Social Diversion.

Ages: Adolescent (13–18) and Adult (18+)
Administration: Self-report
Administration Time: 10 minutes
Formats: Handscored

What It’s Best Used For

• Clinical and Psychiatric Placement: Assessing psychiatric patients or medical patients to understand their behavioral responses to health problems and help determine treatment programs.
• Academic Counseling Centers: Gauging stress management and adaptive behaviors in college students and adolescents (ages 13–18) to support mental health initiatives.
• Workplace Screening and Coaching: Screening corporate candidates or evaluating existing employees in high-stress roles to see how they handle friction, clear roadblocks, or manage workplace strain.
• Correctional Population Audits: Profiling behavioral traits and survival coping mechanisms within correctional environments using specialized population norms.
• Situation-Specific Stress Evaluation: Utilizing the modified, shorter 21-item CISS:SSC form to evaluate how adults react to a hyper-specific event, such as a major interpersonal conflict or a sudden social change.

Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations Key Areas Measured

• Task-Oriented Coping
• Emotion-Oriented Coping
• Avoidance-Oriented Coping
• Distraction
• Social Diversion

The Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations assessment allows you to effectively measure three major types of coping styles: Task-Oriented, Emotion-Oriented, and Avoidance Coping. It also identifies two types of avoidance patterns: Distraction and Social Diversion.

This 48-item inventory is available in versions for adolescents and adults. Gender-specific norms are available for adults, college students, adolescents, correctional populations, psychiatric patients, and various occupational groups.

The manual describes the development and potential uses of the CISS assessment and includes relevant examples. QuikScore™ Forms enable easy recording, scoring, and response profiling.

The CISS self-report is especially useful for making assessment and placement decisions for psychiatric patients, correctional populations, college counseling centers, employee hiring and counseling situations, medical patients, stress and wellness programs, and any other situations where it is useful to assess an individual’s coping style and ability.

The CISS:SSC form is a 21-item measure for adults. The instructions are modified such that responses are given with a designated stressful situation in mind. Norms are given for situations involving social evaluation, change in social situation, relationship or interpersonal conflict, and general stress.

This is a B-Level product available only to qualified individuals.