Brief Solastalgia Scale

Overview

The Brief Solastalgia Scale (BSS) is a five-item revision of the nine-item solastalgia subscale of the Environmental Distress Scale (EDS-S; Higginbotham et al., 2006). Solastalgia is the negative emotional experience — sadness, grief, worry, and powerlessness — arising from the transformation and degradation of one’s home environment, described as “the homesickness one gets when one is still at home.” Across three large post-bushfire samples (N = 4,229), factor analysis confirmed unidimensionality while IRT identified redundant and poorly performing items, yielding a concise scale with equivalent construct coverage and associations to the full-length parent measure.

The BSS also standardises item wording. Whereas the original EDS-S was frequently adapted to specific disasters (mining, fire, coastal erosion), the BSS is presented as a fixed item set to support cross-study and cross-sample comparability.

Items

Please rate the extent you agree or disagree with the following statements relating to change in your local environment (1 = Strongly Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree; a “Does not apply” option may be offered).

• Item 1: I am worried that aspects of this area that I value are being lost.
• Item 2: I am upset at the way this area looks now.
• Item 3: My lifestyle is being threatened by change in my local area.
• Item 4: Unique aspects of nature that made this place special are being lost forever.
• Item 5: I am saddened by unwelcome change I see in my landscape.

Scoring

• No reverse-scored items.
• Total Score: Calculate the mean of the responses across all five items. Higher scores indicate greater solastalgia.

Interpretation

• Higher scores reflect greater environmental distress — worry and sadness about loss, and a sense that environmental change threatens one’s lifestyle. These are the components the IRT analysis identified as most informative; items tapping disrupted belonging and powerlessness were less informative and were not retained.
• Solastalgia is felt more intensely by those who perceive greater environmental change, feel more connected to nature, identify as environmentalists, and report stronger negative climate emotions. It is largely independent of self-rated physical health.
• Measurement range: The BSS is most precise in the –2 to +2 logit range, making it well suited to general-population measurement. The scale is not yet validated as a clinical or individual-level measure, and no representative normative sample has been collected; the aggregate mean of 3.19 (SD 0.87) is drawn from at-risk post-bushfire samples and should be read as a reference point, not a clinical norm.

Citation

Christensen, B. K., Monaghan, C., Stanley, S. K., Walker, I., Leviston, Z., Macleod, E., Rodney, R. M., Greenwood, L.-M., Heffernan, T., Evans, O., Sutherland, S., Reynolds, J., Calear, A. L., Kurz, T., & Lane, J. (2024). The Brief Solastalgia Scale: A psychometric evaluation and revision. EcoHealth. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-024-01673-y