A brief transnational measure of mindfulness: measurement invariance of the Five Item Mindfulness-Based Awareness Scale in six Latin American countries
Medical Education & Clinical Practice May 4, 2026 Tomás Caycho‐Rodríguez, Lindsey W. Vilca, Andy Rick Sánchez‐Villena et al.
The five-item Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS-5) provides comparable measurements across six Latin American countries. Using alignment analysis on data from 2,519 people in El Salvador, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, the study found that both factor loadings and item intercepts were invariant (R² = 0.99 for each), with 0% of parameters non-invariant. This supports metric and scalar invariance, allowing mean comparisons. No significant differences in mindfulness levels were observed across countries. The authors caution that the MAAS has been criticized for measuring inattention rather than attention.