Psychometric properties of the short form of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory in the Arabic language

ABSTRACT

Interests in including mindfulness techniques in medical and psychological fields have been increasing recently. Accordingly, it is important to validate the short form of the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI-14) to help professionals living in Arabic speaking countries. Thus, we aimed to validate the FMI-14 in the Arabic language (FMI-Ar) in Arabic-speaking university students from Lebanon. We carried-out a cross-sectional study between July and September 2021; 363 university students (mean age 22.65 ± 3.48 years, 61.7% females) were enrolled. The McDonald’s omega and Cronbach’s alpha values for the total score were excellent (0.92 for both). Confirmatory factor analysis of the one-factor model of the FMI-Ar showed satisfactory fit indices: χ²/df = 218.33/77 = 2.83, RMSEA = 0.071 [0.060–0.082], CFI = 0.92, and TLI = 0.90. Additionally, the FMI score was negatively associated with depression (r = –0.51; p = 0.001) and anxiety (r = –0.48; p < 0.001). All hypotheses (factor, convergent, and divergent validity) related to the FMI-Ar were verified in our study. Therefore, professionals can now benefit from the FMI-Ar, a suitable scale to measure mindfulness among Lebanese University students.

KEYWORDS:

• Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory
• validation
• Arabic

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all students for their precious help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

The Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross Ethics and Research Committee approved this study protocol (HPC-007-2021). A written informed consent was considered obtained from each participant when submitting the online form. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are not publicly available due to restrictions from the ethics committee. The dataset supporting the conclusions is available upon request to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

SO, RR and SH designed the study; SH and ZB wrote the paper; SH and RR carried out the analysis and interpreted the results; SO, FFR and HMG reviewed the paper for intellectual content; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported that there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.