Mindful Creativity Scale (MCS): Validation of a German version of the Langer Mindfulness Scale with patients with severe TBI and controls

Abstract

Background: Mindfulness may have an impact on the recovery process in patients who have suffered severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). In order to make an instrument for measuring mindfulness within the German speaking clinical community available, a short, easily usable scale and a cross-cultural adaptation is needed.

Objectives: To validate the Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS) with German-speaking patients with severe TBI and their relatives (healthy controls).

Research design: In a prospective cohort study of patients with severe TBI, test–re-test interviews were carried out at 6-month intervals.

Sample: A total of 225 participants responded to the first survey and 230 completed the second survey.

Measures: LMS, self-report questions on personality, openness and attention, as well as health and clinical evaluations (including cognitive and behavioural assessments).

Results: On the basis of factor analysis, principal component analysis and item response analysis, the initial 21-items were reduced to six items. The resulting unidimensional scale showed high internal consistency (α = 0.82) and good test–re-test reliability (intra-class correlation for total score = 0.46). External validity was confirmed for the entire sample.

Conclusion: It was concluded that the German short form of the original LMS (MCS) is a valid and reliable measure of mindful creativity.

• Creativity
• mindfulness
• severe traumatic brain injury
• short-form
• validation

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the PEBITA team (www.pebita.ch) for their collaboration, especially to Bernhard Walder for his offer to integrate several sub-studies into the general project. Many thanks to Ellen Langer who provided the original version of the LMS and to Delphine Courvoisier for statistical consulting. Profound thanks to Arthur Cropley for his comments on the final manuscript and his constant mentorship. Last but not least, thanks to the thorough and useful review by the journals reviewers.

Declaration of interest

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper.