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Validation of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults

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Abstract

The 24-item Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire – Short Form (FFMQ-SF) was developed to measure five facets of dispositional mindfulness: observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judgment of inner experience, and non-reactivity to inner experience. The FFMQ-SF is increasingly used with older adult populations, despite not having been appropriately validated for such use. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the FFMQ-SF among community-dwelling older adults (N = 210). The five subscales of the FFMQ-SF were found to be internally consistent. Convergent validity analyses revealed that all facets of mindfulness except observing were negatively correlated with negative affect, and all facets except for non-judgment were positively correlated with positive affect. Similarly, all facets except for non-judgment were positively correlated with cognitive reappraisal emotion regulation tendencies. Only describing, acting with awareness, and non-judgment were negatively correlated with expressive suppression tendencies. The original five-factor structure of the FFMQ-SF was supported by confirmatory factor analyses. The two-factor higher order structure of the FFMQ-SF was also supported. Overall, the results support the psychometric properties of the FFMQ-SF for use with older adult samples.

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Funding

This study was funded by the Australian Research Council (grant number DP130101420). The ARC had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia

    Brooke Brady & Phoebe E. Bailey

  2. Discipline of Clinical Psychology, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Ian I. Kneebone

Authors
  1. Brooke Brady
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  2. Ian I. Kneebone
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  3. Phoebe E. Bailey
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Contributions

BB: designed and executed the study, completed the data analyses, and wrote the paper. IK: collaborated with the design and writing of the study. PB: collaborated with the design and writing of the study.

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Correspondence to Brooke Brady.

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Conflict of Interest

Brooke Brady declares that she has no conflict of interest. Ian I. Kneebone declares that he has no conflict of interest. Phoebe E. Bailey declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Western Sydney University IRB committee (approval number H11503) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Brady, B., Kneebone, I.I. & Bailey, P.E. Validation of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults. Mindfulness 10, 529–536 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0994-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0994-0

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