Development and validation of the Triadic Coping Inventory (TCI) in a French-speaking population.

Abstract

Coping with stress in families is rarely an individual process and often extends beyond the couple subsystem to involve parents and children jointly. Although dyadic coping has been extensively studied, no validated instrument currently exists to assess how families cope with stress at the triadic level. The present study aimed to develop and validate the Triadic Coping Inventory (TCI), a self-report measure designed to capture coping as a coordinated, systemic process operating across parent-child dyads, the couple subsystem, and the family triad. Participants were 632 French-speaking individuals living with at least one child aged 5-14 years. Using a split-sample design, exploratory factor analyses were conducted on 60% of the sample and confirmatory factor analyses on an independent holdout subsample (40%). Results supported a multidimensional structure comprising four parent-child dyadic coping factors, four couple-level dyadic coping factors, and two family-level triadic coping factors distinguishing positive and negative triadic coping. Internal consistency was acceptable to excellent across subscales, with stronger reliability observed for family-level coordinated coping dimensions. Construct validity was supported through theoretically coherent associations with attachment insecurity, emotion regulation, individual coping strategies, and relationship satisfaction. Criterion-related validity analyses showed strong associations between triadic coping dimensions and relationship satisfaction, and incremental validity analyses demonstrated that TCI subscales explained substantial additional variance in satisfaction beyond attachment dimensions. Together, these findings support the TCI as a reliable and valid instrument for assessing triadic coping processes in families with school-age children. The TCI offers a novel tool for advancing research on family stress regulation and for informing clinical assessment and intervention targeting family-level coping dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).