Validation of the factor structure of the Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire in men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer

Abstract

Mindfulness interventions are increasingly popular in cancer care, emerging in both literature and practice.1, 2 Evidence suggests that mindfulness is helpful for women diagnosed with breast cancer,1 but this may not be the case in other settings.3 To understand when, how, and which mindfulness skills promote effective coping with cancer, well‐validated measures are needed.

The Five Facets of Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)4 is a self‐report measure of engagement in mindfulness practices. The five facets include observing or noticing ones' reaction, ability to describe this reaction, acting with awareness, nonjudging of inner experience, and nonreactivity to inner experience. The FFMQ was originally validated with university students4 and is widely used to measure mindfulness for patients with noncommunicable disease (depression5), including cancer.1, 2 However, these studies overrepresent women with breast cancer, present a factor structure that differs in clinical populations from that originally proposed,5 and none examine construct validity of the FFMQ in cancer populations. Accordingly, we validated the FFMQ using confirmatory factor analysis in men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer (PCa).