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

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.