Climate anxiety refers to the negative emotional reactions that a person can experience in response to climate change irrespective of prior direct experience with it. Research suggests this emotional reaction ranges from successful coping and adaptation to clinical-level psychological impairment. The Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS) was designed to measure a person's level of climate anxiety impairment. However, inconsistent results when testing the relationship between CCAS scores and psychological wellbeing measures have raised questions about the scale's validity and usefulness for assessing climate change's mental health impacts. Our goal was to quantitatively summarise the direction and strength of the correlations between climate anxiety (as indexed by the CCAS) and measures of psychological wellbeing. We identified 25 studies and 60 effect sizes for inclusion, and meta-analytic results indicated a moderate negative correlation between overall CCAS scores and psychological wellbeing ( = −0.296, 95% CI [-0.360; −0.230], < .001). The meta-analytic estimates were consistent across CCAS subscales and diagnosis-specific measures of wellbeing. Multilevel meta-regressions used to estimate the influence of potential moderators indicated that the correlations were stronger when the sample's mean level of environmental identity was higher, and when a measure indicative of mental unwellness was used. We discuss implications for the nature of the relationship between climate anxiety and psychological wellbeing in general, and for the use of the CCAS in clinical and broader contexts.

中文翻译：

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气候焦虑与幸福感关系的荟萃分析

气候焦虑是指一个人在应对气候变化时可能经历的负面情绪反应，无论之前是否有直接经历。研究表明，这种情绪反应的范围从成功的应对和适应到临床水平的心理障碍。气候变化焦虑量表（CCAS）旨在衡量一个人的气候焦虑障碍程度。然而，在测试 CCAS 分数和心理健康指标之间的关系时，结果不一致，引发了人们对该量表评估气候变化心理健康影响的有效性和有用性的质疑。我们的目标是定量总结气候焦虑（由 CCAS 索引）与心理健康指标之间相关性的方向和强度。我们确定了 25 项研究和 60 项效应大小可供纳入，荟萃分析结果表明 CCAS 总体评分与心理健康之间存在中度负相关 (= -0.296，95% CI [-0.360；-0.230]，< .001)。荟萃分析估计在 CCAS 子量表和诊断特定的健康指标上是一致的。用于估计潜在调节因素影响的多级元回归表明，当样本的环境认同平均水平较高且使用指示精神不适的衡量标准时，相关性更强。我们讨论了气候焦虑与一般心理健康之间关系的本质以及 CCAS 在临床和更广泛背景下的使用的影响。