Introduction and behavioral validation of the climate change distress and impairment scale

Abstract

Governmental agencies and the medical and psychological professions are calling for a greater focus on the negative mental health effects of climate change (CC). As a first step, the field needs measures to distinguish affective/emotional distress due to CC from impairment that requires further scientific and diagnostic attention and that may require treatment in the future. To this end, we constructed the climate change distress and impairment scale, which distinguishes CC distress (spanning anger, anxiety, and sadness) from impairment. In four studies (N = 1699), we developed and validated English and German versions of the scale. Across samples, spanning 2021–2022, CC distress was at least moderate, while we observed general moderate to high levels of distress and low to moderate levels of impairment. In three English-speaking samples, younger individuals and women were most affected by CC distress, whereas this was not the case in a German-speaking sample, suggesting sociopolitical influencing factors. We demonstrate convergent validity with previous measures and discriminant validity for general negative affectivity and depressive and generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, which underlines that CC distress is not in itself pathological. Employing a fully incentivized social dilemma paradigm, we demonstrate that CC distress and (to a lesser degree) CC impairment predict pro-environmental behavior, underscoring them as possible drivers, and targets, of climate-change mitigation efforts.

A meta-analysis on the relationship between climate anxiety and wellbeing

“…Studies using measures other than the CCAS to assess forms of climate change distress further support an association between these forms of climate-related-emotions and psychological illbeing. To illustrate, depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms correlate positively with measures of eco-anxiety (Hogg et al, 2021;Stanley et al, 2021), climate change distress and impairment (Hepp et al, 2023;Searle & Gow, 2010), climate change worry (Gago & Sá, 2021;Stewart, 2021), and ecological stress (Lutz et al, 2023).…”

Limited Consensus on What Climate Anxiety is: Insights from Content Overlap Analysis on 12 Questionnaires

“…For instance, for climate/eco-anxiety, measures include the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS; Clayton & Karazsia, 2020), the Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS-13;Hogg et al, 2021), the Eco-Anxiety Questionnaire (EAQ-22;Ágoston et al, 2022) and the climate anxiety subscale of the Inventory of Climate Emotions (ICE; Marczak et al, 2022). For climate change worry and distress, measures include the Climate Change Worry Scale (CCWS; Stewart, 2021), and the Climate Change Distress and Impairment Scale (CC-DIS; Hepp et al, 2023). This list only includes the validated measures that were identified in a review by Cianconi et al (2023).…”

“…EnglishNote. Mentioned scales are the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS;Clayton & Karazsia, 2020), the Environmental Concerns Scale (ECS; also referred to as Environmental Motives Scale (EMS);Schultz, 2001) the Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS-13;Hogg et al, 2021), the Lee environmental concern measure(Lee, 2008), the Climate Change Worry Scale (CCWS;Stewart, 2021), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory adjusted to climate change (STAI-Y1;Spielberger, 1983;Ogunbode et al, 2022), the Ojala climate worry measure(Ojala, 2012), the Anxiety about Climate Change Survey (ACCS;Klingler & Darner, 2020;Meixner et al, 2023), the Brief Climate Change Distress Scale (BCCDS;Latkin et al, 2022), the Climate Change Distress and Impairment Scale (CC-DIS;Hepp et al, 2023), the Eco-Anxiety Questionnaire(EAQ-22;Ágoston et al, 2022), and the climate anxiety subscale of the Inventory of Climate Emotions (ICE;Marczak et al, 2022).1 A preprint is available with a German translation of the EAQ-22: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3606150/v1…”

Psychometric validation of the French version of the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS-FR).

“…Various scales have been developed to assess environmental-related anxiety. Climate anxiety can be assessed using the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (Clayton & Karazsia, 2020), Climate Change Worry Scale (Stewart, 2021), and Climate Change Distress and Impairment Scale (Hepp et al, 2023). As its name suggests, the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CAS) focuses on climate anxiety in terms of the cognitive, emotional, and functional impairments, experiences of climate change (direct or indirect) and proenvironmental engagement.…”

“…The Climate Change Worry Scale specifically targets social and personal worry by evaluating anxious rumination (Stewart, 2021). More broadly, Hepp et al (2023) recently proposed the Climate Change Distress and Impairment Scale to assess different negative affects in response to climate change (i.e., anxiety, anger, sadness, and guilt) and evaluate general, social, and work/school-related impairments. To assess eco-anxiety, Hogg et al (2021) developed the Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale (HEAS) in two steps.…”