ABSTRACT (open access, CC BY-NC 4.0): The climate crisis has wide-ranging mental health impacts, but quantifying these is difficult due to the lack of standardized definitions and tools. This systematic review aims to identify and evaluate the psychometric instruments used to measure emotions related to the climate crisis, assessing their characteristics and gaps. Using PRISMA and COSMIN guidelines, the authors covered articles on self-report measures of eco-emotions and identified ten scales, four focusing on anxiety and six on other negative emotions. Most instruments were developed in the Global North, and six were multidimensional. The most common emotions measured were worry, anxiety, fear, and sadness, and nearly all scales included a behavioural or a cognitive dimension.
A COSMIN systematic review of the psychometric properties of instruments that measure climate change-related distress
ABSTRACT (open access, CC BY-NC 4.0): The climate crisis has wide-ranging mental health impacts, but quantifying these is difficult due to the lack of standardized definitions and tools. This systematic review aims to identify and evaluate the psychometric instruments used to measure emotions related to the climate crisis, assessing their characteristics and gaps. Using PRISMA and COSMIN guidelines, the authors covered articles on self-report measures of eco-emotions and identified ten scales, four focusing on anxiety and six on other negative emotions. Most instruments were developed in the Global North, and six were multidimensional. The most common emotions measured were worry, anxiety, fear, and sadness, and nearly all scales included a behavioural or a cognitive dimension.
Gareth Morgan
I'm one of CPA's youth coordinators. I'm a clinical psychologist with over 20 years' experience working in the NHS and clinical psychology training programmes. I work with the other youth coordinators and other members to nurture an intergenerational culture within CPA, and to develop our offerings for young people and the adults who support them. I am keen to support understandings of of our responses to climate breakdown in ways that support connections with power and wider contexts, including adultism and intergenerational injustice. I am a parent to two wonderful children, and I try and support local actions and community projects when I have the time (doesn't seem to be often!). I work three days a week on the Leicester Clinical Psychology training programme. Listening to music is one of my main coping strategies for my own climate feelings, and I'm looking forward to when I can tell my children to turn their music down, rather than the other way around.
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Theory and frameworks Reading List
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Climate and ecological emotions Reading List
The sources on this list relate to climate and ecological emotions. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.
Descent in the Time of Climate Change
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