Development and Administration of a Measure of Knowledge and Skills for Mindfulness-based, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Introduction: A mindfulness-based, cognitive behavioral therapy (MBCT) intervention designed to treat depression among people with epilepsy, required the development and administration of a new measure to assess the knowledge and skills gained from participating in MBCT.

Methods: An instrument was developed, formatively tested and modified, and administered during intervention implementation. The measure contained 13 Skills items that assessed participant ability to monitor and modify thoughts, practice meditations, and be more attentive to everyday activities, and 18-item Knowledge items assessed participants' knowledge of depression, mindfulness, problem solving, and action plan development.

Results: The measure was administered to treatment and waitlist participants (n= 48) at 3 time points. Across all time points the measure had excellent reliability. Factor analysis on the Skills items revealed that three factors emerged at Times 1 and 2 (explaining 62% and 72% of the variance), while only two factors emerged at Time 3 (70.93% of the variance). The Knowledge and Skills measure was also shown to significantly correlate with a measure of Depression Coping Self-Efficacy at all three time points, which supports the construct validity of the measure (Time 1: R=.433, p<.005; Time 2: R=.330, p<.05; Time 3: R=.698, p<.001).

Conclusions: The measure developed to assess the knowledge and skills gained during MBCT had good reliability and excellent construct validity. However, the variation in the emergent factors of the Skills items warrants further understanding. Future analyses using advanced methods should be used to modify and improve this measure.