Examining the factor structures of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Self-Compassion Scale.

Abstract

The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006) and the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003) are widely used measures of mindfulness and self-compassion in mindfulness-based intervention research. The psychometric properties of the FFMQ and the SCS need to be independently replicated in community samples and relevant clinical samples to support their use. Our primary aim was to establish the factor structures of the FFMQ and SCS in individuals with recurrent depression in remission, since Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was developed as a treatment for preventing depressive relapse. In order to determine the consistency across populations, we examined the factor structures of the FFMQ and SCS in 3 samples: (1) a convenience sample of adults, (2) a sample of adults who practice meditation, and (3) a sample of adults who suffer from recurrent depression and were recruited to take part in a trial of MBCT. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) showed that a 4-factor hierarchical model of the FFMQ best fits the community sample and the clinical sample but that a 5-factor hierarchical model of the FFMQ best fits the meditator sample. CFA did not endorse the SCS 6-factor hierarchical structure in any of the 3 samples. Clinicians and researchers should be aware of the psychometric properties of the FFMQ to measure mindfulness when comparing meditators and nonmeditators. Further research is needed to develop a more psychometrically robust measure of self-compassion.

A Prospective Examination of Self-Compassion as a Predictor of Depressive Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

“…Finally, SCS-POS and self-esteem both exhibited a protective function in the context of depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Our finding that the positive and negative subscales formed two nearly orthogonal factors was consistent with emerging research questioning the total score on the SCS even in adult populations (Armstrong et al, 2015;Lopez et al, 2015;Petrocchi et al, 2014;Williams et al, 2014). In the current study, the positivelyworded items comprising the self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness subscales of the SCS adhered as SCS-POS, and the negatively-worded items comprising the self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification subscales adhered as SCS-NEG.…”

“…The use of total scores on the SCS is the most common scoring method (Macbeth & Gumley, 2012). However, recent factor-analytic studies (Armstrong et al, 2015;Lopez et al, 2015;Petrocchi, Ottaviani, & Couyoumdjian, 2013;Williams, Dalgleish, Karl, & Kuyken, 2014) failed to replicate the factor structure reported by Neff (2003); none of the four studies found support for a single higher-order self-compassion factor. Armstrong et al (2015) and Lopez et al (2015) suggested that calculating separate scores for positively-and negatively-worded items was preferable to a single total score.…”

Psychometric Properties of the Spanish Version of the Nonattachment Scale (NAS) and Its Relationship with Mindfulness, Decentering, and Mental Health

“…In the present study, the correlation between observing and the NAS was also the lowest (in both samples) among FFMQ facets. This finding is not surprising bearing in mind some recent studies (e.g., Desrosiers et al 2014;Williams et al 2014). For instance, Williams et al (2014) found that in both an unspecified community adult sample and a clinical sample, the observing facet did not load significantly onto an overarching mindfulness factor, whereas the other four FFMQ facets did.…”

Mindfulness at Work: Positive Affect, Hope, and Optimism Mediate the Relationship Between Dispositional Mindfulness, Work Engagement, and Well-Being

“…Similar concerns regarding the Observing subscale were also reported by other authors (e.g. Curtiss and Klemanski 2014;Williams et al 2014). To account for this uncertainty in addition to five-factor models we also considered fourfactor models which excluded the items associated with the Observing factor.…”