The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory

Seems there is now a scale to measure mindfulness (and it works on French people, too). OK, seriously, I had not heard of this measure before, so that's pretty cool. Before getting to the new research, here is the abstract and link to an article from 2006:

Measuring mindfulness—the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)

Harald Walach, Nina Buchheld, Valentin Buttenmuller, Norman Kleinknecht, Stefan Schmidt. Personality and Individual Differences; 40 (2006) 1543–1555.

Abstract
Mindfulness, a concept originally derived from Buddhist psychology, is essential for some well-known clinical interventions. Therefore an instrument for measuring mindfulness is useful. We report here on two studies constructing and validating the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) including a short form. A preliminary questionnaire was constructed through expert interviews and extensive literature analysis and tested in 115 subjects attending mindfulness meditation retreats. This psychometrically sound 30-item scale with an internal consistency of Cronbach alpha = .93 was able to significantly demonstrate the increase in mindfulness after the retreat and to discriminate between experienced and novice meditators. In a second study we broadened the scope of the concept to 86 subjects without meditation experience, 117 subjects with clinical problems, and 54 participants from retreats. Reducing the scale to a short form with 14 items resulted in a semantically robust and psychometrically stable (alpha = .86) form. Correlation with other relevant constructs (self-awareness, dissociation, global severity index, meditation experience in years) was significant in the medium to low range of correlations and lends construct validity to the scale. Principal Component Analysis suggests one common factor. This short scale is sensitive to change and can be used also with subjects without previous meditation experience.

I was not aware that such scales were being devised, but it makes sense. The big push in psychology is to measure everything, so you MUST have a scale of some sort. How else can something be "manualized"?

Anyway, the authors presented some of the other models being developed contemporaneously with their own (there are links embedded in the PDF that did to transfer):

1.1. Other measures of mindfulness

1. Brown and Ryan (2003) presented a Mindfulness and Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) with a series of thorough validation studies that testify validity and sensitivity to change, apart from good reliability. However, the scale places a focus on attention and awareness, and thus leaves out some other aspects of mindfulness, like the non-judgmental, accepting attitude, dis-identification, insightful understanding, or an attitude of having no specific goals.

2. Bishop and colleagues have developed the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (Bishop et al., 2003), which measures mindfulness after meditation as a state-like construct. This unidimensional scale consists of 10 items. It was validated in 270 meditators (reliability alpha .76) and is capable to discriminate between various levels of meditation experience and non-meditators.

3. Recently Baer, Smith, and Allen (2004) developed the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Scale (KIMS). This scale is based largely on the conceptualization of mindfulness as applied in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). The KIMS comprises 39 items and consists of four scales with each assessing one of four mindfulness skills. The internal consistency of these scales ranges from alpha .83 to .91. It was validated in two student samples and a small clinical sample. The scale does not cover all facets of the mindfulness construct. So far the scale was not tested on a sample with mindfulness experience (e.g. meditators) or a larger clinical sample.

This is all very cool - I love discovering new stuff! I have included a bunch of articles on mindfulness measures at the bottom, a couple of which (noted) have the actual measures included in the article.

Validation of a French version of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory - short version: relationships between mindfulness and stress in an adult population

Marion Trousselard , Dominique Steiler , Christian Raphel , Corinne Cian , Raffi Duymedjian , Damien Claverie and Frederic Canini

BioPsychoSocial Medicine 2010, 4:8doi:10.1186/1751-0759-4-8

Published: 12 August 2010

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Whereas interest in incorporating mindfulness into interventions in medicine is growing, data on the relationships of mindfulness to stress and coping in management is still scarce. This report first presents a French validation of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory-short form (FMI) in a middle-aged working population. Secondly, it investigates the relationship between psychological adjustment and mindfulness.

Methods

Five hundred and six non-clinical middle-aged working individuals rated themselves on the self-report French version FMI and completed measures of psychological constructs potentially related to mindfulness levels.

Results

Results were comparable to results of the original short version. Internal consistency of the scale based on the one-factor solution was .74, and test-retest reliability was good. The one-dimensional solution as the alternative to the two-factor structure solution yielded suboptimal fit indices. Correlations also indicated that individuals scoring high on mindfulness are prone to stress tolerance, positive affects and higher self-efficacy. Furthermore, subjects with no reports of stressful events were higher on mindfulness.

Conclusion

These data showed that mindfulness can be measured validly and reliably with the proposed French version of the FMI. The data also highlighted the relationship between mindfulness and stress in an adult population. Mindfulness appears to reduce negative appraisals of challenging or threatening events.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

Here are some links to other online, open-access articles on mindfulness measures.

Baer, R.A., Smith, G.T., & Allen, K.B. (2004). Assessment of Mindfulness by Self-Report: The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills. Assessment; 11; 191. DOI: 10.1177/1073191104268029 [Includes the inventory in the appendix.]

Ruth A. Baer, R.A., Smith, G.T., Hopkins, J., Krietemeyer, J. & Toney, L. (2006, March). Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness. Assessment, Volume 13, No. 1, 27-45. DOI: 10.1177/1073191105283504

Buchheld, Engel, Ott, & Piron. (2002). Studies of Meditation and Meditation Research, 2001-2001. Journal for Meditation and Meditation Research, 2000/2001. [Buchheld's paper, the last one, includes a copy of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, with scoring.]

Johnson, N. (2007). Self Report Measures of Mindfulness: A Review of the Literature. Thesis: Pacific University. Common Knowledge; http://commons.paci cu.edu/spp/6

Grossman, P., Niemann, L., Schmidt, S., Walach, H. (2004). Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits: A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 57; 35 –43. doi:10.1016

Lau, M.A., Bishop, S.R., Segal, S.V., Buis, T., Anderson, N.D., et al. (2006). The Toronto Mindfulness Scale: Development and Validation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol. 62(12), 1445–1467. DOI: 10.1002

Tags: Self Report, Measures of Mindfulness, Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Personality and Individual Differences, Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Scale, Toronto Mindfulness Scale, Mindfulness and Attention Awareness Scale, meditation, Psychology, brain, measures, mindfulness