Psychometric properties of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) in a first-episode psychosis sample.
César González-blanch, Leonardo A Medrano, Shaunagh O'sullivan, Imogen Bell, Jennifer Nicholas, Richard Chambers, John F Gleeson, Mario Alvarez-jimenez
Psychological assessment February 1, 2022 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1037/pas0001077 via PubMed
Summary
The Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) works well for people who have recovered from a first episode of psychosis. In 150 individuals, the scale showed a single underlying factor, excellent reliability, and expected relationships with measures of well-being, satisfaction with life, savoring, self-compassion, depression, anxiety, stress, and positive symptoms. These results support using the MAAS to assess present-moment attention and awareness in this population.
Study at a glance
| Design | validation study |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 150 |
| Population | individuals with remitted first-episode psychosis |
| Key finding | The MAAS has a single-factor structure, excellent reliability, and good convergent and discriminant validity in individuals with first-episode psychosis. |
Abstract
Despite the considerable growth in mindfulness-based research in the field of psychosis, few attempts have been made to validate mindfulness instruments in this population. This study aimed to evaluate the factorial structure, internal consistency, construct validity, and longitudinal measurement invariance of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) in a sample of individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP). In a sample of 150 individuals with remitted FEP, the present study explored the factor structure, measurement invariance, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the MAAS. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a single-factor solution, which showed temporal stability, excellent internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α = .92; McDonald's ω = .93), and theoretically coherent convergent and discriminant validity with measures of well-being, satisfaction with life, savoring, self-compassion, depression, anxiety, stress, and positive symptoms. Overall, the psychometric properties of the MAAS were similar to those described in previous validation studies, thus supporting the value of this instrument to assess the dimension of attention and awareness to the present moment in individuals with FEP. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).