Shreeya Menon and Meetu Khosla
Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, Delhi
Background: The unique stressors faced by military families have placed tremendous
stress on the academic, socialand emotional lives of children. Frequent moves, extended
deployments and changing schools can be hard onchildren. RES-COPE was developed
considering the challenges faced by children, to enhance their resilience andcoping. The
present study validates RES-COPE with the help of experts. Content validity index is
calculated toquantifytheresultsofRES-COPE. Aim: This study examined the process of
content validation for an intervention program, calculated the contentvalidityindexinterm
sofitemvalidityindexandscalevalidityindextoquantifyRES-COPEbeforeitsimplementation.
Method:Thepresentadaptedthecontentvalidationprocessfore-healthinterventionsassug
gestedbyKassam-Adams et al.,(2015). Eight experts rated the activities of RES-COPE
on a five point scale (0-4) across threedimensions-Relevance, Likely Effectiveness and
Appropriateness. Item validity index (I-CVI) and Scale validityindex/Average (S-CVI/
Ave) was calculated to determine the validity of RES-COPE. Results for the I-CVI
andS-CVIwerecalculatedbyaddingupthescoresacrossallthedimensionsforalltheactiviti
esofRES-COPE. Results: Results of the present study indicate that the I-CVI index for
all but three activities was excellent across thethree dimensions. Similarly, the S-CVI/
Ave was excellent for Relevance (0.90) but not so up to the mark forEffectiveness(0.88)
andAppropriateness(0.87).Theoverallquantitativeandqualitativeindicators of content
validitydemonstratethefeasibilityofRES-COPEamongchildrenfromIndianmilitaryfami
lies. Conclusion: RES-COPE can be implemented among children aged 8-12 years
from Indian military families. Thevalidation of RES-COPE can pave the way for other
culturally appropriate intervention programmes for childrenfrom Indian military families.
The feasibility of the content validation method proposed by Kassam-Adams etal.,(2015)
can be widely assessed by incorporating content validation processes as a part of
development of mentalhealthinterventions..
.