Development of the Sexual Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-S): Validation Among a Community Sample of French-Speaking Women

Abstract

It has been recently demonstrated that mindfulness-based intervention may be particularly suitable for addressing sexual difficulties in women. Although the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) is currently one of the most widely used scales to assess mindfulness, no adaptation and validation of the FFMQ to measure female sexual functioning has been published. The main aim of this study was to develop and validate a sexual version of the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ-S) to specifically measure mindfulness in the context of sexual encounters. A total of 251 healthy, French-speaking female volunteers were administered the FFMQ-S, the original FFMQ, and the Female Sexual Distress Scale (FSDS-R). Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the FFMQ-S exhibits a five-factor model, as implied by the original FFMQ. Good scale reliability was observed. The FFMQ-S showed significant correlations with the FSDS-R and the usual FFMQ. Scores on the FFMQ-S correlated significantly more negatively with the total FSDS-R score than with the total score of the original version of the FFMQ. These findings clearly support the relevance of developing a version of the FFMQ tailored to sexual functioning.

Authors Adam and Heeren contributed equally to this article.