6 - (IOP 19) Assessing the Factor Structure of Mindfulness, Mood, and Cognition Items in an Ecological Momentary Assessment Battery

In recent years, there has been significant academic interest in mindfulness and its therapeutic potential. However, despite the ubiquity of this research, the construct validity of mindfulness remains debated (e.g., Altgassen et al., 2024). Mindfulness as a psychological construct is often measured via the retrospective self-report scale. However, differing theoretical definitions of mindfulness may have led to numerous, varied mindfulness self-report scales with inconsistent convergent validity and other methodological issues (e.g., Van Dam et al., 2018). There is growing research involving mindfulness measured via ecological momentary assessment (EMA). EMA may offer some possible advantages to retrospective self-report, like improved ecological validity and temporal sensitivity, and the opportunity elucidate both within- and between-person trends. To date, there is limited and mixed research on psychometric properties of EMA mindfulness measures (Biehler & Naragon-Gainey, 2022; Blanke & Brose, 2017).

In this study, we tested the psychometric properties of a novel EMA battery designed to assess momentary mindfulness, mood, and cognition in older adults. Using data from a clinical trial (on mindfulness and exercise interventions for cognitive functioning) in a sample older adults (n = 585, m = 71.5 yr) (see Lenze et al., 2022 for demographics, design), we aimed to determine the multilevel factor structure of the mindfulness, mood, and cognition EMA items. In testing the factor structure, we hoped to also investigate the specificity of mindfulness EMA items at both the within- and between-person levels compared to theoretically similar (mood and cognition) items. We hypothesized that the data would fit a multilevel factor structure with three factors (mindfulness, mood, and cognition) and that this structure would demonstrate strong psychometric properties.

Through multilevel confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM), we identified two underlying multilevel factor structures with good model fit (Model 1: CFI = .97, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .03; Model 2: CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .03). Both factor structures were the same except for one item. Model 1 included all ten items (including one item cross-loaded onto two factors) and Model 2 included nine items (excluding the cross-loaded item). Both models included the same three factors at each level (with the same items loaded onto the same factors, except for the cross-loaded item): (1) negative mood, (2) cognition/mindfulness, and (3) positive affect/mindfulness. These factor structures had strong psychometric properties, including convergent/discriminant validity (correlations with baseline self-report measures), reliability (McDonald's omega), and measurement invariance over time (dynamic SEM model).

The findings of this study provide preliminary support for the utility of this EMA battery (excluding the cross-loaded item) to reliably assess mood and cognition over time at an individual and group level, but not mindfulness (as the mindfulness items did not load onto a single mindfulness factor). However, more research on this battery with different samples and timeframes would be needed to further elucidate its psychometric properties.