Mindfulness and well-being in adolescence: An exploration of four mindfulness measures with an adolescent sample

While the mindfulness construct has attracted attention in the adult psychological literature, relatively little research has explored mindfulness in adolescence. Regardless, mindfulness treatment programs are rapidly being disseminated to adolescents. The proliferation of these programs in the absence of empirical support necessitates the development of a research body to determine whether mindfulness can be measured in adolescents, whether mindfulness training impacts adolescents as it is expected to, and if there are identifiable benefits to such training. Presently available mindfulness training for youth rests on the support of anecdotal evidence and assumptions that mindfulness operates similarly in adolescence and adulthood. Because anecdotal information is not adequate, and because of developmental differences between adults and adolescents, there is a need for information relating to whether mindfulness manifests as a similar or dissimilar construct when measured in a youthful population.;The present study investigated internal consistency, factor structure, retest stability, and convergent validity for four pencil and paper self-report measures of mindfulness using an adolescent sample. Approximately 600 high school students responded to the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS), Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS), and the Mindful Thinking and Action Scale for Adolescents (MTASA). These four measures of mindfulness were related to measures of life satisfaction, happiness, positive and negative affect, feelings of unwellness, degrees of substance use, and an adolescent measure of Big Five personality traits.;Results manifested many relationships in expected directions, adequate retest stability, and good internal consistency for the mindfulness measures examined. Subsequently, a case is made for distinguishing mindfulness as a measurable marker of well-being in adolescence. Internal consistency analyses, retest, and construct validity analyses support future use of three out of four of the measures with adolescent populations. The FFMQ is recommended for use in settings where the measurement of mindfulness skills in a Dialectical Behavior Therapy context is important. The MAAS is recommended when a short measure of mindfulness is desired. The MTASA is suggested when researchers are able to give a longer measure of mindfulness skills and also wish to score the potentially useful Healthy Self-regulation subscale.