Differential effects of forest environmental perception on psychological well-being: the moderating role of perceived stress in national parks.

INTRODUCTION: The rapid urbanization and exposure to unnatural environments has helped to escalate global mental health problems. Interventions involving forests have been demonstrated to be therapeutic, but current studies are mostly concerned with direct effects, not taking into consideration environmental perception and individual differences. Specifically, the moderating effects of stress in determining the psychological well-being benefits of forest settings are not well studied. This study therefore examined whether perceived stress moderates the association between forest environmental perception and psychological well-being among adult visitors to a national park.

METHODS: This quantitative cross-sectional study involved 300 adult visitors to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, China. Recruitment continued until 300 eligible, consenting visitors completed the questionnaire. Ineligibility and refusal were resolved at the point of approach, before enrolment, and every questionnaire collected passed an on-site completeness check, so 300 was both the number collected and the number analysed, with no case excluded at the analysis stage. Because recruitment used non-probability purposive intercept sampling, the findings describe this visitor sample rather than a defined population, and all interval estimates are model-based rather than design-based. Validated measures were used to collect data on forest environmental perception, perceived stress (PSS-10), and psychological well-being (WHO-5). All instruments demonstrated acceptable internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α > 0.70). SPSS and R were used to perform Pearson correlation and hierarchical regression analyses to test moderation, with the addition of an interaction term for forest environmental perception and stress.

RESULTS: Psychological well-being had a positive relationship with forest environmental perception (r = 0.61, p < 0.001), and perceived stress was negatively related to it (r = -0.55, p < 0.001). Regression analysis revealed that environmental perception had a significant and positive association with psychological well-being (B = 21.50, p < 0.001), whereas perceived stress was negatively associated (B = -1.53, p < 0.001). The interaction term was also significant (B = -1.29, p < 0.001), indicating that perceived stress statistically moderated this association, with the conditional slope falling from B = 29.88 at low stress to B = 13.12 at high stress. Perceived stress was unrelated to forest environmental perception itself (r = -0.05, p = 0.436). A significant amount of variance was explained by this model (R 2 = 0.714).

DISCUSSION: Because all variables were measured concurrently, no causal or temporal ordering is implied. The results indicate that the psychological well-being gains of forest environments are not limited to environmental perception but also depend on personal stress levels. Notably, the attenuation observed at high stress does not arise from stressed visitors appraising the forest less favourably, but occurs downstream of appraisal-in the conversion of a favourable appraisal into felt well-being. This pattern is consistent with stress-related constraints on attentional capacity, ruminative self-focus, and emotion regulation. This research adds a moderation-based framework to the literature and underscores the necessity of individually tailored nature-based interventions. Accordingly, we propose a three-tier scheme for national park management and public health practice, in which self-directed access, guided restorative programming, and clinically partnered repeated-dose provision are matched to low, moderate, and high visitor stress, respectively.