Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)

The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is a 39-item instrument derived by factor analyzing the combined pool of items from five independently developed mindfulness questionnaires. It has five subscales: observing, describing, acting with awareness, nonjudging of internal experience, and nonreactivity to internal experience. The five subscales have demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, and change with mindfulness training. The FFMQ has been validated in a wide range of samples, including clinical, community, meditating, and student samples. In addition to the original 39-item version, several short forms have been developed, and the measure is available in a number of languages. Psychometric properties in other languages are generally similar to those in the original English version. Based on consistent findings demonstrating differential relationships between the observing facet and other variables and differential factor structures (with and without observing), in people with and without meditation experience, it is advisable for studies to exclude the observing subscale from total scores when comparing meditators with nonmeditators or scores before and after mindfulness interventions.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA Ruth Baer
2. University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Jenny Gu & Clara Strauss

1. Ruth Baer