Psychometric properties of the climate change anxiety scale

As warnings about the seriousness of climate change become increasingly dire, there is growing concern about its psychological outcomes, particularly climate anxiety. There is not yet consensus on how to conceptualize and measure climate anxiety, but Clayton and Karazsia (2020) recently proposed a climate change anxiety scale as a possible solution to this problem. To build on their measurement work, this study sought to replicate and extend their initial investigation of the scale's structural and discriminant validity. The results indicate that the scale is generally valid and reliable, but there is some ambiguity about its factor structure. Specifically, although the results clarify that the two subscales cannot be treated as two separate constructs, they do not rule out either a first-order unidimensional model or a second-order unidimensional model. Continued conceptual and item development would be of practical and theoretical value. In future studies, a fruitful approach would be to begin with the full scale, then use confirmatory factor analysis to examine the structure and identify indicators that are invalid for a particular sample.