Measuring psychological flexibility in medical students and residents: a psychometric analysis

Psychological flexibility involves mindful awareness of our thoughts and feelings without allowing them to prohibit acting consistently with our values and may have important implications for patient-centered clinical care. Although psychological flexibility appears quite relevant to the training an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical education online 2013-01, Vol.18 (1), p.20932-20932
Main Authors: Palladino, Christie L., Ange, Brittany, Richardson, Deborah S., Casillas, Rhonda, Decker, Matt, Gillies, Ralph A., House, Amy, Rollock, Michael, Salazar, William H., Waller, Jennifer L., Zeidan, Ronnie, Stepleman, Lara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological
assessment
Behavior
Clinical training
Colleges & universities
Counseling
Cross-Sectional Studies
Education, Medical, Graduate
Education, Medical, Undergraduate
Empathy
Flexibility
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Gynecology
Health care
Humans
Internship and Residency
Life satisfaction
Medical Staff, Hospital - psychology
Medical students
Medicine
mindfulness
Obstetrics
Patient care
psychological flexibility
psychological well-being
Psychometrics
Questionnaires
Self awareness
Students, Medical - psychology
Training
Validation studies
Validity
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Summary:Psychological flexibility involves mindful awareness of our thoughts and feelings without allowing them to prohibit acting consistently with our values and may have important implications for patient-centered clinical care. Although psychological flexibility appears quite relevant to the training and development of health care providers, prior research has not evaluated measures of psychological flexibility in medical learners. Therefore, we investigated the validity of our learners' responses to three measures related to psychological flexibility. Fourth-year medical students and residents (n=275) completed three measures of overlapping aspects of psychological flexibility: (1) Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II); (2) Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (CFQ); and (3) Mindful Attention and Awareness Questionnaire (MAAS). We evaluated five aspects of construct validity: content, response process, internal structure, relationship with other variables, and consequences. We found good internal consistency for responses on the AAQ (α=0.93), MAAS (α=0.92), and CFQ (α=0.95). Factor analyses demonstrated a reasonable fit to previously published factor structures. As expected, scores on all three measures were moderately correlated with one another and with a measure of life satisfaction (p
ISSN:1087-2981
1087-2981
DOI:10.3402/meo.v18i0.20932