Regulating eco-anxiety among university students in climate-vulnerable contexts: a PMT–COR integrated coping framework

Purpose Growing climate uncertainty is intensifying students’ eco-anxiety, undermining mental health and academic functioning. Although protection motivation theory (PMT) explains threat and coping appraisal, its application to eco-anxiety remains underexplored. Integrating PMT with conservation of resources theory, this study explains how eco-sustainability engagement and psychological resilience mitigate eco-anxiety by mobilizing individual and institutional resources for adaptive coping. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative cross-sectional survey collected structured questionnaire data from 368 university students across 10 purposively selected public and private universities with active sustainability initiatives in Bangladesh, using convenience sampling and PLS-SEM. Findings Climate threat perception increases eco-anxiety while promoting eco-sustainability engagement, whereas institutional climate leadership reduces eco-anxiety directly and indirectly through eco-sustainability engagement and psychological resilience. Eco-sustainability engagement mediates the effects of climate threat perception and institutional climate leadership on eco-anxiety, while psychological resilience mediates the effect of institutional climate leadership on eco-anxiety. Both contextual and personal resources attenuate the adverse effect of climate threat perception. The model explains 65.2% of the variance in eco-anxiety, 68.5% in eco-sustainability engagement and 44.4% in psychological resilience. Originality/value The study validates an integrated PMT–COR coping framework for eco-anxiety regulation. Importance–performance map analysis identifies four strategic priorities for higher education: institutional climate leadership, sustainability engagement, resilience building and climate threat perception management.