Eco-anxiety in Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health

Confounding factors were identified in the majority of studies.

“Nearly half of studies did not clearly define the inclusion criteria for their samples, whereas confounding factors were identified in the majority of studies [29], but mitigation strategies were not always stated (12 studies).”

Recent systematic and scoping reviews have explored diverse concepts such as climate change perceptions or emotions, reported only on direct impacts, or focused on adolescents.

“Recent systematic and scoping reviews have explored diverse concepts such as climate change perceptions or emotions [22, 23], reported only on the direct impacts of climate change [24–28], or have focused on adolescents [29].”

Existing reviews are limited by inclusion of studies that utilise non-validated assessments of mental health.

“Most critically, existing reviews are further limited by inclusion of studies that utilise non-validated assessments of mental health e.g., [22, 23, 29–31], limiting understanding of mental health outcomes and psychiatric burden associated with eco-anxiety and resulting in uncertainty on the potential vicarious impacts of climate change on clinically-relevant distress.”