The brief solastalgia scale: A psychometric evaluation and revision

Authors

Bruce K. Christensen
Conal Monaghan
Samantha K. Stanley
Iain Walker
Zoe Leviston, Edith Cowan University
Emily Macleod
Rachael M. Rodney
Lisa-Marie Greenwood
Timothy Heffernan
Olivia Evans
Stewart Sutherland
Julia Reynolds
Alison L. Calear
Tim Kurz
Jo Lane

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

EcoHealth

Publisher

Springer

School

School of Arts and Humanities

RAS ID

69843

Funders

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions / Medical Research Future Fund

Comments

Christensen, B. K., Manoghan, C., Stanley, S. K., Walker, I., Leviston, Z., Macleod, E., . . . Lane, J. (2024). The brief solastalgia scale: A psychometric evaluation and revision. EcoHealth. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-024-01673-y

Abstract

Witnessing degradation and loss to one’s home environment can cause the negative emotional experience of solastalgia. We review the psychometric properties of the 9-item Solastalgia subscale from the Environmental Distress Scale (Higginbotham et al. (EcoHealth 3:245–254, 2006)). Using data collected from three large, independent, adult samples (N = 4229), who were surveyed soon after the 2019/20 Australian bushfires, factor analyses confirmed the scale’s unidimensionality, while analyses derived from Item Response Theory highlighted the poor psychometric performance and redundant content of specific items. Consequently, we recommend a short-form scale consisting of five items. This Brief Solastalgia Scale (BSS) yielded excellent model fit and internal consistency in both the initial and cross-validation samples. The BSS and its parent version provide very similar patterns of associations with demographic, health, life satisfaction, climate emotion, and nature connectedness variables. Finally, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated comparable construct architecture (i.e. configural, metric, and scalar invariance) across validation samples, gender categories, and age. As individuals and communities increasingly confront and cope with climate change and its consequences, understanding related emotional impacts is crucial. The BSS promises to aid researchers, decision makers, and practitioners to understand and support those affected by negative environmental change.

DOI

10.1007/s10393-024-01673-y

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.