94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or good
Learn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish.
Find out more
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate and Health
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fclim.2025.1580361
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change Anxiety View all 6 articles
The impact of climate change experience on Palestinian university students' mental health: A cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted- 1 Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine
- 2 Bethlehem University, Bethlehem, Palestine
- 3 Arab American University, Jenin, Palestine
- 4 Hebron University, Hebron, Palestine
The prevalence of severe and catastrophic weather incidents linked to a modified climate system may induce mental problems such as anxiety, depression, distress, and worry in people. This study aims to assess the effect of climate change on depression, anxiety and distress among Palestinian undergraduate students. The study utilized a cross-sectional research design. A self-reported questionnaire, including the Climate Change Anxiety Scale, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Kessler Psychological Distress cale-6 ere used to gather data. A total of 1,338 participants were recruited, of whom 66% reported climate change experience and only 6.1% had climate change anxiety. Due to climate change experience, 50.3% of participants had anxiety, 47.5% experienced distress and 36.0% experienced depression symptoms. The multivariate analysis indicated that the likelihood to experience climate change is more pronounced among females (AOR:0.444, p-value <0.001), participants with high family income (AOR: 0.235, p-value <0.001), and those who perceived climate as impacting their academic performance(AOR: 1.986, p-value <0.001). Also, the participants whose mood was adversely affected by climate change experience (AOR: 2.573, p-value <0.001), participants who reported serious mental health problems (AOR: 2.049, p-value <0.001) and participants experiencing depression were more exposed to climate change experience (AOR: 1.374, p-value: 0.041). The findings indicated that undergraduate students had a low level of climate change anxiety, which may impede their motivation to engage more actively in protecting the environment and high level of depression, distress, stress and anxiety. The university's engagement in climate change through education, research, and the sharing of information on climate change incidents, mitigation ion and adaptation strategies is essential for improving the mental health of undergraduate students.
Keywords: Climate Change, Depression, Anxiety, Climate change anxiety, undergraduate, Palestine
Received: 20 Feb 2025; Accepted: 17 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ahmead, El Sharif, Maqboul, Zyoud and Nawajah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Muna Ahmead, Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.