Can Nursing Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Climate Change

December 7, 2025 updated by: Semanur Çelik Demiryürek, Kastamonu University

Can Nursing Students' Knowledge and Attitudes Toward Climate Change Be Strengthened for a Sustainable Future?: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Climate change is a major global problem threatening individual health, public health, and health systems. Climate change poses a significant global threat to social and environmental health determinants, such as the disruption of food systems, the spread of climate-sensitive diseases, and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change will cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths annually from malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, and heat stress between 2030 and 2050. In this context, nursing students, as future healthcare providers, need to be prepared and knowledgeable about global warming, climate change and its impacts on health, climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and the promotion of a healthy environment for a sustainable future. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of climate change education on nursing students' knowledge and attitudes regarding climate change and health.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Climate change is a major global problem threatening individual health, public health, and health systems. Climate change poses a significant global threat to social and environmental health determinants, such as the disruption of food systems, the spread of climate-sensitive diseases, and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that climate change will cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths annually from malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition, and heat stress between 2030 and 2050. Climate change leads to increased mortality and illness due to extreme weather events such as heat waves, storms, and floods; increases in the frequency and intensity of food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne infectious diseases; exacerbations of chronic diseases; and increases in mental health problems. Consequently, it negatively impacts individual health physically, mentally, and socially. Due to the increasingly negative impacts of climate change on human health, nurses can serve as expert resources for patients, community members, and policymakers. However, nurses need to be well-equipped and highly aware of this issue. In this context, it is emphasized that nurses' climate-related competencies should be enhanced both today and in the future, starting with the educational process and developing independent practices rather than topics covered in existing courses. In this context, nursing students, as future healthcare providers, need to be prepared and knowledgeable about global warming, climate change and its impacts on health, climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and the promotion of a healthy environment for a sustainable future. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of climate change education on nursing students' knowledge and attitudes regarding climate change and health.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Locations

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Being a 4th-year nursing student
  • Voluntarily participating

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Having any situation that would prevent communication

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Training Module
Training Module on Climate Change
Behavioral: Climate Module
Training Module on Climate Change
No Intervention: Standard Education

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Climate, Health, and Nursing Tool
Time Frame: 8 weeks
The Climate, Health, and Nursing Tool (CHANT) was developed by Schenk and colleagues (2016). The Turkish validity and reliability study was conducted by Yalçın and Aktaş, and the scale can be used to assess awareness of climate change as well as knowledge and attitudes regarding the climate-health relationship. The scale consists of 48 items and five subdimensions: knowledge, awareness, motivation, concern, and behaviors. There is no total scale score; instead, evaluations are based on subdimension scores. In the validity and reliability analysis, the Cronbach's alpha value for the overall scale was reported as 0.93; for the knowledge subdimension 0.78, for awareness 0.97, for motivation 0.89, for concern 0.95, and for behaviors 0.94.
8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Kastamonu University

Investigators

  • Study Director: Zeynep ARABACI, pHD, Kastamonu University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

January 10, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

March 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 30, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 13, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 7, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

December 19, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 19, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 7, 2025

Last Verified

December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 112425

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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