Psychometric Properties of the Persian Version of the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire

In recent years, mindfulness-based research has been developed. Many tools have been developed to measuring mindfulness in adults, one of the most important is the Southampton Questionnaire. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire.

To determine the psychometric properties and factor analysis of this scale. A sample of 200 students (100 boys and 100 girls) were selected from Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences through convenience sampling. Self-compassion Scale – Shor t Form was used for convergent validity, and depression, anxiety, stress and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were used for divergent validity. To analyze the data, correlation coefficient and exploratory factor analysis were used with SPSS-20 software.

In the exploratory factor analysis three factors were obtained the three factor structure that in total, 50/51% of the total variance of mindfulness was explained. The results also showed that the Southampton questionnaire had a good convergence validity with self-compassion (0/59) and positive affect (0/40) and good divergent validity with negative affect (-0/35), depression scale (-0/36), anxiety (-0/30) and stress (-0/50). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was obtained for the first factor,0/78 the second factor 0/69 and the third factor 0/62.

It could be concluded that the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire has approperiate psychometric properties in the student community. The findings of the present study indicate that the Southampton Mindfulness Questionnaire can be reliable tool for assessing the level of mindfulness. Keywords: Mindfulness, Psychometric Properties, Exploratory Factor Analysis.