Lykins, Amy D

Bonich, Mary

Sundaraja, Cassandra

Cosh, Suzanne

2024-01

<p>Clinical and subclinical levels of anxiety and depression are common experiences during pregnancy for expectant women; however, despite rising awareness of significant climate change anxiety around the world, the extent to which this particular type of anxiety may be contributing to overall antenatal psychological distress is currently unknown. Furthermore, the content of concerns that expectant women may have for their existing or future children remains unexplored. To address this gap in knowledge, 103 expectant Australian women completed standardised assessments of antenatal worry and depression, climate change anxiety, and perceived distance to climate change, and responded to several open-ended questions on concerns they had for their children. Results indicated that climate change anxiety accounted for significant percentages of variance in both antenatal worry and depression scores and, unexpectedly, neither child number nor perceived distance to climate change moderated these relationships. Content analysis of qualitative data highlighted the significant health-related anxieties for participants’ children related to climate change (e.g., disease, exposure to extreme weather events, food/water insecurity). Given the escalating nature of climate change, further investigation of this relatively new stressor contributing to the experience of anxiety and distress, particularly in uniquely vulnerable groups such as expectant women, is urgently needed.</p>

Journal of Anxiety Disorders, v.101, p. 1-8

1873-7897

0887-6185

https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/58286

en

Elsevier Ltd

Attribution 4.0 International

Climate change anxiety positively predicts antenatal distress in expectant female parents

Journal Article

Publication