South American Validation of a Survey to Assess Eco-Anxiety in Adults (ECO-ANS-LATAM)

Abstract

Background: climate change is a reality, and more and more people are becoming aware of this global problem, which has generated anxiety in some populations. To validate a short survey to assess eco-anxiety in adults in South America. Methods: It is an instrumental study, and the validation was based on a previous survey, which had six questions and was generated by 217 respondents in the USA in 2021. These questions were subjected to a validation process with expert judgment, pilot and application, and then statistics were obtained. It was validated with 1907 people in six countries in South America, where the mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis were adequate. Results: The initial confirmatory factorial model obtained unsatisfactory goodness-of-fit indices, so the indices were modified through a re-specification, where two items were eliminated, after which adequate values were obtained (χ2 = 22.34, df = 2, p = 0.00; RMR = 0.020; GFI = 0.990; CFI = 0.990; TLI = 0.990; and RMSEA = 0.070). Finally, the overall Cronbach’s α was calculated to be 0.88 (95% CI = 0.86–0.89). Conclusions: The test was validated in a large South American population and found that only four questions can efficiently measure anxiety about the effects of climate change. The instrument can be used with other tests to screen different age groups, ethnicities and realities.