Exploring the Psychometric Properties of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire

A growing literature supporting the efficacy and effectiveness of mindfulness and its application has developed over the past decade. Reliable and valid measurement of mindfulness is an essential component of this emerging area. Therefore, in this study, a confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the factor structure of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al. (Assessment 13: 27-45, 2006)) among a mixed sample of meditators and non-meditators. However, unlike the original FFMQ validation study in which item parceling was used, in this study individual items were used as indicators, providing an item-level test of the FFMQ model fit. Overall, the hierarchical FFMQ model using item-level indicators provided a good fit to the data. The reliability and validity of each of the five facets of the FFMQ (Observing, Describing, Acting with Awareness, Nonreactivity, Nonjudging) was also acceptable.