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A longitudinal approach to understanding risk factors for problem alcohol use during the COVID‐19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Baptist Mohseni Natasha,
Morris Vanessa,
Vedelago Lana,
Kempe Tyler,
Rapinda Karli,
Mesmer Emily,
Bilevicius Elena,
Wardell Jeffrey D.,
MacKillop James,
Keough Matthew T.
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.14774
Subject(s) - pandemic , longitudinal study , latent class model , demography , psychology , alcohol use disorders identification test , medicine , young adult , covid-19 , coping (psychology) , depression (economics) , gerontology , injury prevention , environmental health , poison control , clinical psychology , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty) , statistics , mathematics , pathology , sociology , economics , macroeconomics
Background We conducted a longitudinal study to examine person‐centered heterogeneity in problem drinking risk during the 2019 Coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic. We aimed to differentiate high‐ from low‐risk subgroups of drinkers during the pandemic, to report on the longitudinal follow‐up of the baseline sample reported in Wardell et al. ( Alcohol Clin Exp Res , 44 , 2020, 2073), and to examine how subgroups of drinkers differed on coping‐related and pre‐pandemic alcohol vulnerability factors. Methods Canadian alcohol users (N = 364) were recruited for the study. Participants completed surveys at four waves (spaced 3 months apart), with the first being 7 to 8 weeks after the COVID‐19 state of emergency began in Canada. The data were analyzed using a parallel process latent growth class analysis followed by general linear mixed models analysis. Results We found evidence for three latent classes: individuals who increased drinking (class 1; n = 23), low‐risk drinkers (class 2; n = 311), and individuals who decreased drinking (class 3; n = 30). Participants who increased (vs. those who decreased) problem drinking during the pandemic struggled with increasing levels of social disconnection and were also increasingly more likely to report drinking to cope with these issues. Those in the increasing class (relative to low‐risk drinkers) reported increasing levels of depression during the study. Relative to low‐risk drinkers, participants in the increasing class had higher pre‐pandemic AUDIT scores, greater frequency of solitary drinking, and higher alcohol demand. Interestingly, participants in the decreasing class had the highest pre‐pandemic AUDIT scores. Conclusions We examined longitudinal data to identify subgroups of drinkers during the pandemic and to identify factors that may have contributed to increased problem drinking. Findings suggest that while most of the sample did not change their alcohol use, a small portion of individuals escalated use, while a small portion decreased their drinking. Identifying the vulnerability factors associated with increased drinking could aid in the development of preventative strategies and intervention approaches.