Coping with most stressful event. The revised
WOC,14 covering 66 items, was used to identify
strategies the patients with COPD used to cope with the most stressful encounter. The WOC measures how an individual thought, felt, and behaved in relation to a specific event. The interviewer read aloud each WOC coping item and asked the patient to describe whether he or she had used it or not when dealing with the stressful
event. In the present article, two response categories
are used. Zero indicates that the strategy was not used, and 1 indicates that it was used (by combining the two alternatives “used somewhat” and “used a lot”). Coping strategies are categorized as either problem-focused or emotion focused.