How is climate change anxiety linked to depression and general anxiety?

Details

The researchers examined how best to measure climate change anxiety, as well as how it relates to other psychological measures. In a preregistered study with 305 participants, they translated an existing questionnaire into French and compared different ways of grouping its questions. A separate preregistered study with 905 participants repeated that comparison.

In both studies, the best-fitting option among those tested was a 13-question version separating climate-related thoughts and feelings from related difficulties with daily functioning. Both aspects were positively associated with depression and with how strongly people saw their connection to the environment as part of their identity, but not with general anxiety.

This supports distinguishing these aspects when measuring climate change anxiety with the French questionnaire. It does not establish that climate change anxiety causes depression, or that it is unrelated to general anxiety in every population. The abstract does not report participants’ ages or how large the associations were.