Freiburg Questionnaire on Coping With Illness (Freiburger Fragebogen zur Krankheitsverarbeitung; FKV-LIS)

Coping strategies were assessed with the German-language FKV-LIS questionnaire. The FKV-LIS allows the differentiation of a broad spectrum of coping strategies and is widely applied in German-speaking countries to assess illness coping in different disease entities. This 35-item questionnaire is divided into five subscales (“depressive coping”, “active, problem-oriented coping”; “distraction and self-affirmation”, “religiousness and search for meaning” and “trivialization and wishful thinking”). It assesses coping strategies for dealing with a disease on cognitive, emotional and behavioral levels. While coping strategies cannot be universally categorized as adaptive or maladaptive, “active and problem-oriented coping” as well as “distraction and self-affirmation” can usually be viewed as more beneficial than “depressive coping” and “trivialization and wishful thinking”. Answers are based on 5-point Likert scales, with higher scores indicating a higher intensity of coping in a particular domain. Since normative values for coping cannot be established, the raw scores are used for analysis (23). For better readability, we will refer to the scales in the following by abbreviated names, namely “depressive coping”, “active coping”, “distraction”, “religiousness” and “wishful thinking”.