The impact of climate change on student psychological distress

Indonesia is now experiencing abnormal severe hot weather, where El-Nino causes the increasing temperature to be above the average. Although El Nino is a common phenomenon that occurs naturally, climate change factors exacerbate the adverse impact of El Nino on human life. Many studies have presented empirical evidence on how climate change significantly affects individuals’ mental health, distress, burnout, and other related psychological wellbeing. However, little attention has been paid to the relationship between students’ psychological wellbeing and climate change, especially in Indonesia. This research aims to understand how environmental aspects can harm students’ psychological wellbeing, by measuring the correlation between climate change, mental health, and psychological distress. The variables that will be observed in this research are climate change exposure, pro-environmental behaviour, psychological distress, and positive mental health. Using the online survey method, the respondents of this research will be undergraduate students from many different universities in Indonesia. This research is expected to present the negative impact of climate change on positive mental health and psychological distress, which is moderated by environmental awareness.


Introduction
Climate change is a global complex challenge [1].It is projected that by 2100, the temperature will rise by 2.5 to 4.7 degrees Celsius due to the impact of Green House Gases [2].
Climate change significantly impacts global society and disrupts weather patterns, disturbing the normal balance of nature [3].Indonesia is highly vulnerable to climate change impact, contributing to more influences of El Niño and La Niña [4].Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG) Indonesia has projected that Indonesia's temperature will increase from 0.2 to 0.3 °C from 2020 to 2030 [2].
The massive news on climate change results in an increase in psychological anxiety [5].In addition, the natural disaster and environmental change caused by climate change significantly affects an individual's mental health.For example, the community that is affected by ecological disasters such as

Climate Change
The global scale of climate change refers to the Earth's entire regions.Climate change is defined as variations in the climate of a place that are statistically significant over long periods, usually more than ten years.Additionally, it explains that climate change can be caused by internal natural processes, external forces, or human actions, continuously altering the composition of the atmosphere and land use.The increasing average temperatures of air and sea, melting snow and ice, and rising sea levels are concrete evidence of current global climate change [9].The variables are yet to be determined.
The questions regarding climate change experienced by respondents follow [10] instruments.These questions encompass experiences related to exposure, including temperature and humidity, drought and rainfall, wildfires, and floods.

Pro-environmental behavior
Pro-environmental behaviour entails protecting, improving, and reducing the adverse impacts caused by human activities on the natural environment [11][12][13].Meanwhile, pro-environmental behaviour specifically refers to aspects related to the environment in daily life, such as reducing energy consumption (gas, oil, electricity), conserving resources (air, water, soil), recycling (plastic, paper), and preserving life (flora and fauna) [14].
The questions for this variable are constructed from [15].They include behaviours such as watersaving conservation, recycling, home composting, and avoiding food waste.

Psychological distress
Psychological distress is the statement of emotional suffering expressed by the symptoms such as the feeling of anxiety, depression, and other form of negative psychological feelings.The symptoms can manifest in different ways and be triggered by various factors, including personal, social, and environmental stressors.Although psychological distress can be a normal response to challenging experiences, for example, the loss of a family member, financial problems, relationship conflicts, or occupational stress, it may become an indication of mental health issues.In addition, it is essential to underline that psychological distress exists along the continuum, and the stressor might have different impacts depending on the resilience of each individual.
This study measured psychological distress using indicators from [16].The psychological distress was measured by several questions, such as (1) Did you feel very nervous?(2) Have you felt so down in the dumps nothing could cheer you up? (3) Have you felt calm and peaceful?(3) Have you felt downhearted and depressed?(4) Have you been very happy?

Positive mental health
Positive mental health is when an individual can recognize their potential, work productively, manage normal life stresses, and make positive contributions to society.It encompasses how we perceive ourselves, how we handle external circumstances, and the quality of our relationships [17].Positive mental health involves a positive perception of oneself, the world, and the future that generates positive moods, coping mechanisms, and good social skills; this condition enables someone to cope with life pressures and contribute to the surrounding community's wellbeing [17].
Positive mental health is derived from [16].Questions assessing positive mental health include (1) feeling full of life, (2) having lots of energy, (3) feeling worn out, and (4) feeling tired.

Model development
The basic tenet of Conservation of Resource Theory (COR) is that individuals strive to prevent what is valued [18].In order to prevent and obtain the valuable thing, an individual should invest in more resources.Resource is any kind of thing that is useful for an individual to achieve a goal.As a university student, an individual invests resources, such as money, time, and effort, to achieve a higher educational level to pursue their valuable future.However, the external factors, in this case, climate change, have been exaggerating their anxiety about what future they will face, which can be a burden for individual students that might endanger resource loss, causing mental health and wellbeing degradation.However, according to the COR principal [19] an individual tends to invest in another resource when experiencing resource loss.At this point, the resource reservoir can be built by the individual or institution.The investment of new resources at least can reduce the negative impact, or at the maximum point, can flourish the individual's value.Referring to the principle, we add pro-environmental behaviour as the moderator of the correlation between climate change, psychological distress, and positive mental health.When an individual tends to have pro-environmental behaviour, the more likely an individual is vulnerable to psychological distress and lower positive mental health.

Research design
This study is a quantitative research-based approach, where the research is based on positivism philosophy to examine a specific population or sample and random sampling with data collection using instruments and statistical data analysis [20].The quantitative approach originates from a theoretical framework, the ideas of experts, or the researcher's understanding, which is then developed into problems and their proposed solutions aiming for justification or assessment in the form of empirical data support in the field.This method is called quantitative because the research data consists of numbers, and the analysis uses statistics [20].The research design is an internet-based survey of university students in Indonesia.The survey instrument is an online questionnaire created within Google Forms.Hence, all structured questions are crafted within Google Forms.

Sampling method and data collection
The sampling is non-probability sampling.Data was collected through an online survey which is distributed online.The participants of this study should be undergraduate students in Indonesia.In this research, the survey is a volunteering or opt-in panel where participants can choose to participate (or not).This sampling method is chosen in this study because, according to [21], a non-probability opt-in survey has the possibility to get more participants than probability sampling.
Number of samples in this study is measured by using equation ( 1): Where  represents sample size,  /2 is the critical value of the normal distribution at /2,  denotes standard deviation, and e is the margin of error.For this study, the standard deviation of climate change is established at 0.58.With a set  of 5% and e of 10%, the minimum required sample size, determined by Equation ( 1), amounts to 132 respondents.

Measurement
This study employs an even-numbered Likert scale ranging from 1 to 6 to assess the variables in the instrument.Value 1 signifies 'never,' 2 represents 'briefly once,' 3 indicates 'occasionally,' 4 stands for 'most of the time,' 5 denotes 'almost every time,' and 6 signifies 'always' for the variables of climate change, po-environmental behaviour, and psychological distress.However, the scale is reversed for the variable of positive mental health, where 1 corresponds to 'always,' 2 to 'almost every time,' 3 to 'most of the time,' 4 to 'occasionally,' 5 to 'briefly once,' and 6 to 'never.'This use of an even-numbered Likert scale aims to deter neutral or uncertain responses from participants.Researchers commonly employ this scale when seeking responses indicating agreement or disagreement [22].

Data analysis
Parametric statistical analysis will be applied to this study.Descriptive analysis such as average, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, quantile 1 and 3, and median will be used in this study.In addition, histograms and scatterplots for data visualization will also be employed in this study.The correlation analysis will be used to identify the relationship between variables.Finally, the linear regression analysis is applied to this research.These are the four models that will be analysed in this research: Where  1 represents the climate change experienced by the respondent,  2 denotes proenvironmental behaviour,  1 is psychological distress,  2 stands for positive mental health,  denotes the constant term in the regression models,  signifies model parameter, and  is the error term.Models 1 and 3 were used to predict the influence of climate change on psychological distress and positive mental health, respectively.Meanwhile, Models 2 and 4 predict psychological distress and positive mental health outcomes resulting from climate change, considering the intervention of proenvironmental behaviour.

Results and discussion
The analysis of this research begins with the profiling of respondents.The total number of respondents in this research is 165 university students from various universities across Indonesia.Using this sample, the margin error of this sample is 0.089.
The summary of the respondent profile is presented in Table 1.The respondents in this research are predominantly female (75%).Their ages range from 16 to 23 years old, with the majority falling within the 18 and 19 age brackets.Most respondents are in their first and second year of university study and are primarily students without jobs.
In this study, we align with the arguments of [23] suggesting that the Likert scale can be treated as an interval scale.Consequently, we utilize parametric analysis to compute the measurement of variables.It is evident from Table 2 that the average value for the climate change variable is 2.67, which falls below 3, indicating an occasional occurrence.The maximum value recorded for this variable is 4.17.Figure 2 reveals that the distribution of values ranges between 2 and 3.This finding suggests that, on average, respondents experience climate change less frequently.In other words, we can conclude that respondents in this study have less experience with extreme climate changes.
Meanwhile, the average score for pro-environmental behaviour is 3.14, indicating that respondents occasionally exhibit pro-environmental behaviour.The maximum value recorded for this variable is 4.75.Figure 3 illustrates a clear distribution of pro-environmental behaviour values, indicating that the respondents' pro-environmental behaviour is not particularly high.
In contrast to the two other variables, the average for psychological distress is 3.08, with minimum and maximum values of 1.6 and 6, respectively.Meanwhile, Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of psychological distress measurements.The histogram shows that more respondents fall within the range of 2.5 to 3.5, but some are at level 6.It indicates that the level of psychological distress among respondents is still below the high level.
Unlike the three other variables, the average for positive mental health in this study is notably high (Figure 5), at 3.73 out of a maximum value of 6.The range for this variable span from 1.5 to 5.5.In this study, we explore the relationship between climate change ( 1 ) and its correlation with psychological distress ( 1 ) and positive mental health ( 2 ).Furthermore, pro-environmental behaviour ( 2 ) is introduced as a moderator variable alongside climate change.These variables are then analysed for their correlations with psychological distress and positive mental health.The correlation results are detailed in Table 3.The correlation analysis shows that there is a significant correlation among the pair.The correlation of variables without moderation of pro-environmental behaviour is higher than that of variables with moderation of pro-environmental behaviour.
The detailed influence among variables in the parameter model of four variables is presented in Table 4.All the model's parameters are statistically significant.However, the R 2 is very low.Meanwhile, Figures 5 and 6 are scatterplots visualizing all the models.The steep slope of Model 3 indicates a substantial effect: as individuals experience more climate change events, there is a significant reduction in their positive mental health.In other words, this suggests a clear impact of climate change on decreasing mental wellbeing.Conversely, in contrast to Model 3, the shallow slope of Model 4 implies that the intervention of pro-environmental behaviour has mitigated the adverse effects of experiencing climate change on positive mental health.It highlights the potential for such interventions to counteract the negative impacts of environmental stressors on mental wellbeing.
Based on these models, it becomes evident that the intervention involving pro-environmental behaviour has effectively mitigated the adverse impact of climate change on both psychological distress and positive mental health.

Conclusion
This research has demonstrated that climate change worsens psychological distress and diminishes positive mental health.Additionally, the study has shown that implementing pro-environmental behaviour interventions can mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on both psychological distress and mental health.Consequently, it is recommended that promoting pro-environmental behaviour can serve as a means to alleviate the detrimental impact of climate change on mental health.

Figure 6
Figure 6 illustrates the relationship between climate change and psychological distress, both with and without the intervention of pro-environmental behaviour.The observational data points are represented by green dots, while Model 1's regression line is depicted in blue and Model 2's in red.In Model 1, a one-scale increase in the respondent's experienced climate change ( 1 ) correlates with a 0.5107-point rise in psychological distress.Conversely, in Model 2, a one-point increase in the climate change issue, when intervened upon by pro-environmental behaviour, results in approximately 0.098point increase in psychological distress.This suggests that the intervention of pro-environmental behaviour might mitigate the impact of climate change on psychological distress.

Table 2
displays the averages, standard deviations, minimum and maximum values, as well as the first and third quartiles (Q1, Q3) for each variable.Meanwhile, Figures1 to 4depict the data distribution for each variable.

Table 2 .
Descriptive statistics of all variables

Table 3 .
The correlation between variables

Table 4 .
Regression model