The Italian Adaptation and Validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS): Assessing Coping Strategies for the Climate Emergency Among Young Adults

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the manuscript titled “The Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS): Assessing Coping Strategies for the Climate Emergency Among Young Adults”.
The authors have presented the Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS). Two studies were conducted, confirming the reliability, validity, and robustness of the Italian version of the Climate Change Coping Scale.
The paper is well-written, following the standard structure of a scientific paper. The topic addressed by the authors is highly relevant and is likely to interest a broad audience of researchers in this field. The introduction references recent studies and is well-presented. The authors have carefully explained the analyses they conducted and the results obtained. In the final section, they have discussed their findings in relation to the existing literature and have acknowledged the limitations of their study.

I don't have many revisions to suggest to the authors, but I can provide a few recommendations that may help improve their manuscript and make it more accessible to readers.
Introduction:
- In the introduction, the authors could further clarify the motivation behind selecting young adults as their target population. Why were young adults aged 18–30 chosen instead of older or younger people? This is particularly relevant for future research perspectives.
- The authors could also elaborate on whether other scales exist that assess environmental concerns among Italian young adults (e.g., anxiety, worries) and why a new instrument focusing on coping strategies is necessary.
Study 1 and Study 2:
- Table 3 presents the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample in Study 2. A similar table could be included for Study 1.
- Why did the authors calculate McDonald’s Omega in Study 2 but not in Study 1? Additionally, what are the advantages of using McDonald’s Omega alongside Cronbach’s Alpha? The authors could provide a clearer explanation of this issue.
- In Table 1S, there is an error in the row numbering (the number 5 appears twice).
Discussion:
- The authors could further elaborate on the practical and research implications of their findings.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Dear Editor,       
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the manuscript titled “The Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS): Assessing Coping Strategies for the Climate Emergency Among Young Adults”.  
The authors have presented the Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS). Two studies were conducted, confirming the reliability, validity, and robustness of the Italian version of the Climate Change Coping Scale.
The paper is well-written, following the standard structure of a scientific paper. The topic addressed by the authors is highly relevant and is likely to interest a broad audience of researchers in this field. The introduction references recent studies and is well-presented. The authors have carefully explained the analyses they conducted and the results obtained. In the final section, they have discussed their findings in relation to the existing literature and have acknowledged the limitations of their study.

• Thank you very much for your positive feedback on our work.

I don't have many revisions to suggest to the authors, but I can provide a few recommendations that may help improve their manuscript and make it more accessible to readers.               

Introduction:
In the introduction, the authors could further clarify the motivation behind selecting young adults as their target population. Why were young adults aged 18–30 chosen instead of older or younger people? This is particularly relevant for future research perspectives.

• Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the requested clarification in the introduction.

The authors could also elaborate on whether other scales exist that assess environmental concerns among Italian young adults (e.g., anxiety, worries) and why a new instrument focusing on coping strategies is necessary.         

• Thank you for your feedback. As stated in the manuscript, to the best of our knowledge, there are no validated scales that measure coping strategies related to climate change in the Italian context. Other scales are available in the literature, such as the Climate Change Worry Scale (Stewart, 2021), the Ecoanxiety Scale (Innocenti et al., 2022), etc. Some of these were used to conduct validity analyses of our adapted instrument.

Study 1 and Study 2:      
Table 3 presents the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample in Study 2. A similar table could be included for Study 1.           

• Thank you for your suggestion. We have created a table in which we have included the sociodemographic information about sample of Study I, as in Study II.

Why did the authors calculate McDonald’s Omega in Study 2 but not in Study 1? Additionally, what are the advantages of using McDonald’s Omega alongside Cronbach’s Alpha? The authors could provide a clearer explanation of this issue.

• We have included McDonald's coefficient in Study I as well. We preferred to report both coefficients because McDonald's omega is a measure that provides a more accurate estimate of internal consistency when the data are more complex, such as in the case of psychometric instruments with structures that are not necessarily unidimensional.

In Table 1S, there is an error in the row numbering (the number 5 appears twice).

• Thank you very much for pointing out the error. We have made the correction.

Discussion:
The authors could further elaborate on the practical and research implications of their findings.

• Thank you for your suggestion. As requested, the details have been further specified in the conclusion section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article under review aims to describe the process of Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS) on a sample of young adults. I believe that the authors have fully achieved their goal and described the process of adaptation and validation of CCCS in accordance with contemporary requirements for this type of research.

I have only one recommendation for a slight change in the structure of the article. In my opinion, the authors conducted one study, which was divided into two large stages. In this regard, when describing the design of the study and presenting its results, it is better to talk about two stages of the study rather than two separate studies. In this case, the presence of a common Discussion and Conclusions for the two stages of the study (as presented in the article) seems more justified.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article under review aims to describe the process of Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS) on a sample of young adults. I believe that the authors have fully achieved their goal and described the process of adaptation and validation of CCCS in accordance with contemporary requirements for this type of research.

• Thank you very much for your positive evaluation of our work.

I have only one recommendation for a slight change in the structure of the article. In my opinion, the authors conducted one study, which was divided into two large stages. In this regard, when describing the design of the study and presenting its results, it is better to talk about two stages of the study rather than two separate studies. In this case, the presence of a common Discussion and Conclusions for the two stages of the study (as presented in the article) seems more justified.

• Thank you for your suggestion. We have specified in the text that the adaptation and validation process of the CCCS took place in two main phases, organized into two distinct but naturally integrated studies. Therefore, we have renamed the discussion section as "General Discussion”.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article provides a necessary adaptation and validation of the Italian version of the CCCS that could be employed in different contexts and proves the instrumental advantages of use for the present instrument. The manuscript provides a robust and necessary statistical analysis for the specific variables of the proposed scales with the associations. I recommend acceptance with minor revisions. Please find specific comments below.

Abstract. L10-11. I suggest not including the affirmation about high potential for trauma and stress, as this could be a quite subjective observation.

L13. Please mention the three distinct strategies.

L24-25. Consider including the most important significant differences of the coping variables that could help readers understand the importance of your article since the beginning.

Introduction. Line 52. Please include what is the age range of this group.

Line 152. You need to include the data about the original scale, date, institution that designed the scale, and some other articles that have previously employed the scale; it is presented in the links on lines 165 and 168 but the reader would need to access the link.

L325. It would be necessary to mention that “climate change worry involves primarily verbal-linguistic thoughts”. Check Stewart 2021.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article provides a necessary adaptation and validation of the Italian version of the CCCS that could be employed in different contexts and proves the instrumental advantages of use for the present instrument. The manuscript provides a robust and necessary statistical analysis for the specific variables of the proposed scales with the associations. I recommend acceptance with minor revisions.

• Thank you very much for your positive feedback on our work.

Please find specific comments below.

Abstract. L10-11. I suggest not including the affirmation about high potential for trauma and stress, as this could be a quite subjective observation.

• Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have simplified the sentence by referring only to a chronic stressor, in line with the reference to Clayton et al., 2020.

L13. Please mention the three distinct strategies.

• We preferred not to include the names of the coping strategies to avoid redundancy in the abstract. However, your suggestion was helpful in more clearly stating in the second part of the abstract that the adapted version of the instrument retained the same latent structure, and therefore, the constructs were named in the same way. Thank you very much.

L24-25. Consider including the most important significant differences of the coping variables that could help readers understand the importance of your article since the beginning.

• Thank you for your feedback. The abstract includes the sociodemographic variables that showed significantly different levels in coping strategies (such as gender, political orientation, occupation, etc.).

Introduction. Line 52. Please include what is the age range of this group.

• Thank you for your suggestion. We have added as requested.

Line 152. You need to include the data about the original scale, date, institution that designed the scale, and some other articles that have previously employed the scale; it is presented in the links on lines 165 and 168 but the reader would need to access the link.

• Thank you for your suggestion. The requested information has been added. The studies that have used the scale are now included not only via links but also as numbered references in the text and in the references section.

L325. It would be necessary to mention that “climate change worry involves primarily verbal-linguistic thoughts”. Check Stewart 2021.

• Thank you very much, we appreciated your suggestion and have added the requested information to the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx