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Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS)

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Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research

Abstract

The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) is a 39-item self-report measure based on a conceptualization of mindfulness as a set of skills that can be taught and practiced. It was influenced by understandings of mindfulness skills in dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction. The KIMS has four subscales: observing, describing, acting with awareness, and accepting without judgment. Content validity of the items was supported through ratings by experts. The four subscales have been shown to have adequate to good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, to be correlated in the expected directions with a variety of constructs, and to change significantly with mindfulness training. A four-factor structure has been supported in clinical and nonclinical populations. A hierarchical factor structure in which the four factors are elements of an overarching mindfulness construct has not been supported, probably because of characteristics of the observing scale; this issue has been explored using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, a closely related instrument. The KIMS has been shown to have acceptable psychometric properties in French and German translations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Ruth Baer

  2. Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Jenny Gu & Clara Strauss

Authors
  1. Ruth Baer
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  2. Jenny Gu
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  3. Clara Strauss
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruth Baer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Oleg N. Medvedev

  2. North Shore Campus, Auckland Univ of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Christian U. Krägeloh

  3. Dept of Psychology and Neuroscience, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Richard J. Siegert

  4. Augusta University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Nirbhay N. Singh

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Baer, R., Gu, J., Strauss, C. (2022). Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS). In: Medvedev, O.N., Krägeloh, C.U., Siegert, R.J., Singh, N.N. (eds) Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77644-2_14-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77644-2_14-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-77644-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-77644-2

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