Factor structure of the Spanish version of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire- Short Form (FFMQ-SF) in Mexican sample

Recently mindfulness, a concept that comes from Eastern philosophy, has been incorporated into the mental health research field as a skill that may counteract the negative effects of repetitive thinking on anxiety symptoms. Mindfulness consists of being aware of the present moment with all senses and without making judgments, meaning being aware of one’s own thoughts instead of suppressing them. Because mindfulness function as a strategy to decrease anxiety symptoms, relying on valid instrument to measure it acquires great relevance for research and psychological practice. The Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ, Baer, et al., 2008) has been developed to measure five aspects of mindfulness: observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging of inner experience, and non-reactivity to inner experience. This measure exhibited excellent psychometric properties, and more a short form version of this the FFMQ has been developed, consisting of 24 items (FFMQ-SF; Asensio-Martínez et al., 2019). Although the original version FFMQ has been translated and validated with samples from Spain (Cebolla et al., 2012) and Mexico (Meda, Herrero, Blanco-Donoso, Moreno-Jiménez & Palomera, 2015), no validation studies have been conducted with a northern Mexican sample, and the FFMQ-SF has to be examined with Spanish-speaking individuals. The present study aimed to fill this gap. Method: The sample was constituted by 430 undergraduate students of a northeastern Mexican university (M= 20.59, SD = 1.91, 79.3 % females). A back to back translation to Spanish was conducted of the FFMQ-SF, and participants completed, through an online survey, the 24-item measure. Results: A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine if the original five factor model was a good fit with the data. The model was found to be a poor fit, χ2/df= 895.413/242, RMESA= .079, CFI= .767, TLI= .735. As the original model was a poor fit, the FFMQ-SF was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis, with a Principal Axis extraction method and a Promax factor rotation. Items with factor loadings of .4 or greater on a single factor were retained. A five factor model was supported and 18 of the original 24 items were retained, all of the items loaded on the original factors. Also, reliability analyses were performed to explore the internal consistency, reporting the following: Non-reactivity a= .59; Observing a= .64, Acting with awareness a= .78, Describing a= .69, and Non-judging, a= .76. Discussion: The results from the present study, although not conclusive, support the five factor structure of the Spanish version of the FFMQ-SF. Because some subscales reported questionable levels of internal consistency, a revision of the current Spanish FFMQ-SF is suggested and further studies are recommended with samples from different regions, ages, SES levels, including clinical samples.