Psychometric testing of a new instrument for assessing individual's mindfulness, abilities, and well-being outcomes: The Leaf Mind Management (LMM) scale

• Published in: Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) N.J.), 2024-10, Vol.43 (38), p.30081-30097
• Main Authors: Leaf, Caroline, Turner, Robert P., Paulson, René M., Lynch, Gabrielle Z., Leaf, Alexy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Mental health; Mindfulness; Psychology; Quantitative psychology; Social Sciences; Validation studies; Validity
• ISSN: 1046-1310; 1936-4733
• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-024-06360-3

A critical step for improving mental health is developing non-pharmacological therapies to treat anxiety and depression effectively without reliance on pharmacological treatments and accompanying risks for side effects and interactions. Studies have confirmed the efficacy of mindfulness for such mental health improvement. Still, seminal research has noted that the effective application of mindfulness to therapeutic practices is lacking an assessment tool to capture mindfulness and the necessary intermediating factors for its longer-term well-being outcomes: self-regulation, exposure, flexibility, and values clarification. Therefore, This study aimed to present and validate a psychometric tool for their measurement. The researchers conducted face and content validity assessments to ensure a strong initial approach to question selection. A final set of 71 items was selected for the initial questionnaire, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) found 20 items nested within six factors, explaining 71.9% of the overall variance representing a set of knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors related to the intermediating factors and neurological mechanisms of mindfulness. Study 1’s findings suggested that these 20 questions forming the Author Mind Management (LMM) survey tool have both structural validity and consistent reliability across both samples. Implementing the LMM through the Neurocycle App, the findings of Study 2 found that test-retest reliability for all six LMM subscales was strong and that construct validity existed with established anxiety, depression, and well-being measures. Construct validity with blood measures also revealed significant relationships between the stress and anxiety subscale and homocysteine levels and DHEA/cortisol ratios.