School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, P.O. Box 446, Jounieh, Lebanon.
Social and Education Sciences Department, School of Arts and Sciences, Lebanese American University, Jbeil, Lebanon.
BMC Psychol. 2024 Aug 24;12(1):453. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01942-z.
Acknowledging the increasing worry over climate change and its psychological effects, the aim of this research is to clarify the dynamics between religiosity, climate anxiety and death anxiety, seeking to figure out the way religiosity mitigates the psychological effects of existential anxieties and climate related anxiety.
Using Google Forms, a questionnaire was developed and disseminated through a variety of messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. Through a snowball sampling technique, 763 participants were recruited in this cross-sectional during September 2023.
The subsequent variables were adjusted in the moderation analysis: age, gender, and place of living. The results suggested that religiosity levels moderated the association between climate anxiety and death anxiety (Beta = 0.02, t = 1.97, p = .05, 95% CI 0.001, 0.035). At low, moderate, and high levels of religiosity, higher climate anxiety was significantly associated with more death anxiety. In addition, at low levels of climate anxiety, individuals with higher levels of religiosity (22.66) had more decreased levels of death anxiety compared to those with lower levels of religiosity (11.99). As climate anxiety levels increase, inverted patterns can be observed, with highly religious individuals showing higher levels of death anxiety than those with lower levels of religiosity. Overall, the relationship between climate anxiety and death anxiety was found to be weakest at low levels of religiosity and strongest at high levels of religiosity.
Our findings suggest a possible beneficial effect of high religiosity at low levels of climate anxiety. This effect is reversed as climate anxiety starts to increase. Therefore, clinicians and policy-makers should bear in mind these complex interactions when designing strategies to mitigate mental health problems in the context of climate crisis.
鉴于人们对气候变化及其心理影响的担忧日益加剧，本研究旨在阐明宗教信仰、气候焦虑和死亡焦虑之间的动态关系，探讨宗教信仰减轻存在焦虑和与气候相关的焦虑的心理影响的方式。
研究使用 Google 表单，通过 WhatsApp、Instagram 和 Facebook Messenger 等各种消息平台开发并分发问卷。通过滚雪球抽样技术，于 2023 年 9 月招募了 763 名横断面研究参与者。
在调节分析中调整了以下变量：年龄、性别和居住地。结果表明，宗教信仰水平调节了气候焦虑与死亡焦虑之间的关联（Beta=0.02，t=1.97，p=0.05，95%CI 0.001，0.035）。在低、中、高宗教信仰水平下，较高的气候焦虑与较高的死亡焦虑显著相关。此外，在低水平的气候焦虑下，宗教信仰水平较高（22.66）的个体比宗教信仰水平较低（11.99）的个体死亡焦虑水平降低幅度更大。随着气候焦虑水平的增加，可以观察到相反的模式，即高度宗教信仰的个体比宗教信仰水平较低的个体表现出更高的死亡焦虑。总体而言，在宗教信仰水平较低时，气候焦虑和死亡焦虑之间的关系最弱，而在宗教信仰水平较高时最强。
我们的研究结果表明，在低水平的气候焦虑时，高度的宗教信仰可能具有有益的影响。当气候焦虑开始增加时，这种影响会发生逆转。因此，临床医生和政策制定者在制定策略以减轻气候危机背景下的心理健康问题时，应牢记这些复杂的相互作用。
