Climate change worry and mental health: an exploratory study on the mediating role of intolerance of uncertainty and future anxiety in young Italian adults

Climate Change is a phenomenon that has been increasingly investigated in the literature from a psychological perspective for its impact on mental health, particularly that of young adults who, already affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, are highly worried about it. Despite this, few studies have been conducted in the Mediterranean region, especially in southern Italy, and little consideration has been given to the role of other variables in the relationship between environmental emotions and mental health. The present study aims to explore the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in a sample of 283 Italian young adults (age range 18–25; M = 21.3; SD = 1.7) from Southern Italy (91% from Campania), examining the mediating effect that Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety have on the target. At the same time, it endeavors to explore the joint effect of the two mediators in the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Psychological Distress. Findings highlighted that Climate Change Worry had a significant positive effect on Anxiety and Stress levels and positively influenced Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety; the latter two also increased the impact of Climate ChangeWorry on Psychological Distress, acting as vulnerability factors in all parallel mediation models performed and, specifically, in the fully mediated Depression model. Furthermore, the findings of the serial model corroborated the joint effect of the two mediators and highlighted how young adults with higher levels of Climate ChangeWorry experienced more Intolerance of Uncertainty, which positively influenced Future Anxiety levels and, in turn, exacerbated the Global Psychological Distress. Finally, levels of Psychological Distress, Climate ChangeWorry, and Future Anxiety were significantly higher in women. To conclude, exploring the indirect pathways through which negative environmental emotions affect Psychological Distress seems to be a fertile research area to study in more depth the impact of the climate crisis on new generations.