Intervention integrity in mindfulness-based research: strengthening a key aspect of methodological rigor.

To ensure methodological rigour, research on Mindfulness-Based Programs (MBPs) should include systems for assessing and reporting the integrity of the intervention. The critical variable of the quality of the teaching and the degree of adherence to the curriculum are likely to influence research outcomes and their interpretation. Currently, three tools for assessing intervention integrity in the MBP field have been developed, but they need further research and development. Research going forward needs to include systematic methods for demonstrating and verifying the integrity of the MBP, both to ensure the rigor of individual studies and to enable different studies of the same MBP to be fairly and validly compared with each other.