Investigation of Nurses' Awareness, Worry and Hope Levels for Preventing Climate Change

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between nurses' climate change awareness, climate change worry, and their hope for preventing climate change. METHODS: A total of 240 nurses working in a training and research hospital located in western Türkiye (in inpatient services, outpatient clinics, critical care services, and administrative departments) participated in this cross-sectional and correlational study. The data were collected using the Introductory Information Form, Global Climate Change Awareness Scale, Climate Change Worry Scale and Climate Change Hope Scale. The data were evaluated by Kolmogorov Smirnov test, descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient and Linear regression analysis. RESULTS: It was determined that nurses' awareness of climate change (75.04 ± 13.96) is at a moderate level, their worry about climate change (37.10 ± 8.37) is above moderate level, and their hope for preventing climate change (39.14 ± 7.50) is at a moderate level. There was a significant positive correlation between awareness, worry and hope levels (p < 0.01). In the linear regression analysis, climate change awareness and climate change worry positively and significantly predicted the hope to prevent climate change (R2 = 0.438, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings of the study indicate that climate change awareness and climate change worry are associated with hope for preventing climate change among nurses. These findings suggest that the cognitive (awareness) and emotional (worry) components together may contribute to the development of a solution-oriented and constructive approach among nurses.