The Russian–Ukrainian conflict is affecting mental health even in communities that are not directly involved in the war; added to this is the escalating conflict in the Middle East and its dangerous spread, which brings the war back to the center of the contemporary social and economic horizon. The present study aims to explore the psychological impact of war in a sample of 310 Italian young adults (18–30 years; M = 22.0; SD = 2.6) while exploring the relationship between Fear of War and psychological distress and evaluating the mediating effects of Future Anxiety and Intolerance of Uncertainty in this relation. Findings highlighted how Fear of War positively and significantly affects Stress, Anxiety, and Depression, and, at the same time, how it fuels both Future Anxiety and Intolerance of Uncertainty. These constructs, in addition to positively affecting the mental health outcomes considered, mediate the relationship between Fear of War and youth psychological distress with a significant indirect effect observed in all three mediation models performed. Finally, significantly higher levels of psychological distress, Fear of War, and Future Anxiety are reported in women than in men. The findings are discussed with reference to the recent literature on the psychological impact of war and on contemporary youth psychological distress, indicating the importance of educational policies and targeted interventions aimed at supporting this target in coping with multiple contemporary collective stressors.

Climate Change is a phenomenon that has been increasingly investigated in the literature from a psychological perspective for its impact on mental health, particularly that of young adults who, already affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, are highly worried about it. Despite this, few studies have been conducted in the Mediterranean region, especially in southern Italy, and little consideration has been given to the role of other variables in the relationship between environmental emotions and mental health. The present study aims to explore the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in a sample of 283 Italian young adults (age range 18–25; M = 21.3; SD = 1.7) from Southern Italy (91% from Campania), examining the mediating effect that Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety have on the target. At the same time, it endeavors to explore the joint effect of the two mediators in the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Psychological Distress. Findings highlighted that Climate Change Worry had a significant positive effect on Anxiety and Stress levels and positively influenced Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety; the latter two also increased the impact of Climate Change Worry on Psychological Distress, acting as vulnerability factors in all parallel mediation models performed and, specifically, in the fully mediated Depression model. Furthermore, the findings of the serial model corroborated the joint effect of the two mediators and highlighted how young adults with higher levels of Climate Change Worry experienced more Intolerance of Uncertainty, which positively influenced Future Anxiety levels and, in turn, exacerbated the Global Psychological Distress. Finally, levels of Psychological Distress, Climate Change Worry, and Future Anxiety were significantly higher in women. To conclude, exploring the indirect pathways through which negative environmental emotions affect Psychological Distress seems to be a fertile research area to study in more depth the impact of the climate crisis on new generations.

Previous research has already examined the relationship between Future Anxiety, a construct recently introduced in Italy, and mental health in young adults, although possible mediating variables in this relationship have so far never been investigated. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the incidence of Future Anxiety on psychological distress (i.e., Stress, Anxiety and Depression) in a group of 302 young Italian adults (18–30 years; M = 21.9; SD = 2.6; 49.0% males; 51.0% females), presenting and evaluating the simultaneous mediating effect of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Non-Pathological Worry. Findings highlighted how Future Anxiety had a positive and significant direct effect on Stress and Depression, but not on Anxiety. In the three serial mediation models proposed, Intolerance of Uncertainty and Non-Pathological Worry mediated the relationship between Future Anxiety and mental health outcomes. The results also confirmed the hypothesized serial mediation effect by highlighting how young adults with greater Future Anxiety experienced more Intolerance of Uncertainty, which positively affected Non-Pathological Worry levels and, in turn, exacerbated psychological distress. Finally, results indicated that female participants experienced more Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in relation to Future Anxiety compared to males. Starting from the review of main references on this subject, the results discussed provide new insights for understanding youth psychological distress. Finally, practical implications for the design of supportive interventions for this study’s target group are proposed.

The return of war to Europe with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict generated mental health effects even in countries not directly involved in the war. The present study describes the Italian adaptation and validation of the Fear of War Scale (FOWARS), i.e., a 13-item Likert scale built by a Romanian research team and exploring the fear of war. For the Italian adaptation, a sample of 150 young Italian adults (aged 18–30, M = 21.7; SD = 2.2) has been collected. Exploratory Factor Analysis conducted with PCA confirmed the bifactorial structure of the scale and detected two dimensions, i.e., the “Physiological dimension of fear” and the “Experiential dimension of fear”. The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis show adequate goodness of fit and the last version of the scale, consisting of 12 items, shows good internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity. Positive significant correlations with the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were also found. Moreover, results from ANOVA display significant differences between men and women, with the latter showing higher values of fear of war. Finally, t-test analyses highlight the impact of the fear of war on Italian young adults’ mental health and worry. The Italian adaptation of FOWARS has good overall psychometric properties and can be used to explore the fear of war in the Italian young adult population to highlight the psychological impact of war and its relationship with mental health.

The expansion of wars around the world fosters a macrosocial stress with multilevel effects that also affect the mental health of populations not directly involved, in particular of evolutionary targets in delicate transition. The present study describes the process of development, validation, and evaluation of the psychometric properties of the War Worry Scale (WWS), an instrument that explores the psychological impact of war in contexts not directly involved and, in particular, in the target population of young Italian adults. The process of construct definition and item generation of the WWS is presented here and then verified in Study I, which, using a sample of 250 young adults (40.4% male and 59.6% female), describes the exploration of the factor structure of the instrument through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and presents preliminary psychometric properties. An independent sample of 500 young adults (39.4% male; 60.6% female) was recruited for Study II, which describes the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supporting the second-order structure with two first-order dimensions, Worry about the Present (WWP) and Worry about the Future (WWF), composed of 10 items (5 per dimension). The internal consistency of the WWS, convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity with other validated measures, and measurement invariance between males and females are further described. Finally, significant differences in the levels of Worry about War are found in relation to several sociodemographic variables, i.e., gender, occupational status, relationship status, and political orientation. Overall, the results of Studies I and II confirm the validity, robustness, and reliability of the War Worry Scale.