Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire

What it measures?

• The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is one of the most widely used and evaluated measures of mindfulness (Baer et al. 2008, Shallcross et al. 2021).
• The FFMQ assesses five different aspects of mindfulness: observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reactivity to inner experience.
• Observation entails the ways we use our sensory awareness. It involves how we see, feel, and perceive the internal and external world around us and select the stimuli that require our attention and focus.
• Describing reflects the way we label our experiences and express them in words to ourselves and others.
• Acting with Awareness studies the movements we choose after attending to the information present at the moment.
• Non-judgment/non-judging assesses self-acceptance and empathy for oneself and others.
• Non-reactivity refers to active detachment from negative thoughts and emotions so that we can accept their existence and choose not to react to them.
• Some studies argue that reliability is low for the Full-Scale FFMQ (Aguado et al., 2015, Baer et al., 2008) or that FFMQ measures do not directly reflect a latent variable of mindfulness (Van Dam, 2012) and, therefore, report only subscale scores for each of the five domains of mindfulness.
• The test originates from an exploratory analysis of similar tests such as the Mindfulness Awareness Scales (Brown & Ryan, 2003), Cognitive Affective Mindfulness Scale (Hayes & Feldman, 2004), Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (Baer et al., 2004), and Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (Walach et al., 2006).

Who is it for?

Adults aged 18 years +

Instrument Quality

• The 39-item version of the FFMQ (Baer et al., 2006), has reasonable psychometric properties in students, community members, and meditators (Baer et al., 2006; Baer et al., 2008), though its properties have varied across groups (Baer et al., 2008; Van Dam et al., 2009).
• A factor analysis of the five facets of FFMQ revealed that the hierarchical structure of the factors justify the traits that each element claims to measure (Baer et al., 2006; Baer et al., 2008).

Structure

• 39 items
• Each subscale has 8 questions, except Non-Reactivity which has 7
• Items are rated on a five-point categorical response scale ranging from 1 (never or very rarely true) to 5 (very often or always true).
• Respondents are asked to rate each statement with the number/response that best describes their own opinion of what is generally true for them.

Scoring instructions

• Sum all items together to calculate the Full Scale FFMQ.
• Sum items in each sub-scale to calculate sub-scale scores.
• Total scores range from 39 – 195.
• Subscales range from 5 - 40, except Non-Reactivity which ranges from 5 - 35.
• Note: Reverse score items 12, 16, 22, 5, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 34, 38, 3, 10, 14, 17, 25, 30, 35, 39

Score Interpretation

What higher scores mean?

• A higher score indicates higher levels of mindfulness and self-awareness in everyday life. The scale also measures the effectiveness of other mindfulness strategies such as MBCT and MBSR (Baer et al., 2006). Scores can range from 39 to 195. The mean score on the Full-Scale FFMQ for a sample with mild-moderate depressive symptoms was 121 (SD = 20.36; Shallcross et al., 2020). Means and SD for subscales in the same population are presented below: Observe M = 25.54, SD = 6.02 Describe M = 27.19, SD = 6.94 Acting with Awareness M = 23.70, SD = 5.81 Non-judgment M = 24.70, SD = 7.11 Non-reactivity M= 19.88, SD = 4.51

Instrument developers

• Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191105283504

Refrences

* Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J., & Toney, L. (2006). Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment, 13(1), 27–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191105283504 * Baer, R. A., Smith, G. T., Lykins, E., Button, D., Krietemeyer, J., Sauer, S., Walsh, E., Duggan, D., & Williams, J. M. (2008). Construct validity of the five-facet mindfulness questionnaire in meditating and nonmeditating samples. Assessment, 15(3), 329–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191107313003 * Karl, J.A., Fischer, R. (2020) Revisiting the five-facet structure of mindfulness. Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences 2, 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42409-020-00014-3 * Shallcross, A., Lu, N. Y., & Hays, R. D. (2020). Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Five Facet of Mindfulness Questionnaire. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 42(2), 271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-019-09776-5 * Aguado, J., Luciano, J., Cebolla, A., Serrano-Blanco, A., Soler, J. & García-Campayo, J. (2015) Bifactor analysis and construct validity of the five facet mindfulness questionnaire (FFMQ) in non-clinical Spanish samples. Frontiers in Psychology, *6(*404). https://doi.org/110.3389/fpsyg.2015.00404 * Van Dam, N. T., Hobkirk, A. L., Danoff-Burg, S., & Earleywine, M. (2012). Mind Your Words: Positive and negative items create method effects on the five facet mindfulness questionnaire. Assessment, 19(2), 198-204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191112438743 * Bohlmeijer, E., Ten Klooster, P. M., Fledderus, M., Veehof, M., & * Baer, R. (2011). Psychometric properties of the five facet mindfulness questionnaire in depressed adults and development of a short form. Assessment, 18(3), 308-320.