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Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic

The large-scale disruption to peoples’ daily lives during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a context for examining whether use of substances such as psychedelics in a naturalistic (outside of a controlled environment) setting, is associated with better mental wellbeing and resilience relative to those...

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Autores principales: Bălăeț, Maria, Trender, William, Hellyer, Peter J., Hampshire, Adam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10307955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37398594
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1184681
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author Bălăeț, Maria
Trender, William
Hellyer, Peter J.
Hampshire, Adam
author_facet Bălăeț, Maria
Trender, William
Hellyer, Peter J.
Hampshire, Adam
author_sort Bălăeț, Maria
collection PubMed
description The large-scale disruption to peoples’ daily lives during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a context for examining whether use of substances such as psychedelics in a naturalistic (outside of a controlled environment) setting, is associated with better mental wellbeing and resilience relative to those who use other drugs, or who do not use drugs at all. We interrogate data from the Great British Intelligence Test and identify that 7.8% out of N = 30,598 unique respondents used recreational drugs inclusive of psychedelics, cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recruitment materials did not mention drug use would be surveyed, thereby enabling us to model the relationship with mood and resilience in people who had not specifically self-selected themselves for a ‘drug’ study. We report that people form clusters, characterized by different real-world patterns of drug use, and the majority of psychedelics users also use cannabis. However, a subset of cannabis users do not use psychedelics, enabling a subtractive comparison. Those who primarily used psychedelics and cannabis during the COVID-19 pandemic had worse mood self-assessment and resilience scores compared to those who never used drugs or primarily used cannabis. This pattern was also evident for other recreational drug use clusters, except for those who primarily used MDMA and cannabis, who had better mood but were of too low incidence to have confidence in this estimate. These findings cast light on the significant differences in mental wellbeing between users of different drugs and the non-user population during a global-crisis and call for future research to explore the pharmacological, contextual and cultural variables associated with these differences, their generalisability and causal links with greater precision.
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spelling pubmed-103079552023-06-30 Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic Bălăeț, Maria Trender, William Hellyer, Peter J. Hampshire, Adam Front Psychiatry Psychiatry The large-scale disruption to peoples’ daily lives during the COVID-19 pandemic provides a context for examining whether use of substances such as psychedelics in a naturalistic (outside of a controlled environment) setting, is associated with better mental wellbeing and resilience relative to those who use other drugs, or who do not use drugs at all. We interrogate data from the Great British Intelligence Test and identify that 7.8% out of N = 30,598 unique respondents used recreational drugs inclusive of psychedelics, cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recruitment materials did not mention drug use would be surveyed, thereby enabling us to model the relationship with mood and resilience in people who had not specifically self-selected themselves for a ‘drug’ study. We report that people form clusters, characterized by different real-world patterns of drug use, and the majority of psychedelics users also use cannabis. However, a subset of cannabis users do not use psychedelics, enabling a subtractive comparison. Those who primarily used psychedelics and cannabis during the COVID-19 pandemic had worse mood self-assessment and resilience scores compared to those who never used drugs or primarily used cannabis. This pattern was also evident for other recreational drug use clusters, except for those who primarily used MDMA and cannabis, who had better mood but were of too low incidence to have confidence in this estimate. These findings cast light on the significant differences in mental wellbeing between users of different drugs and the non-user population during a global-crisis and call for future research to explore the pharmacological, contextual and cultural variables associated with these differences, their generalisability and causal links with greater precision. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-06-15 /pmc/articles/PMC10307955/ /pubmed/37398594 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1184681 Text en Copyright © 2023 Bălăeț, Trender, Hellyer and Hampshire. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Bălăeț, Maria
Trender, William
Hellyer, Peter J.
Hampshire, Adam
Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort associations between the use of psychedelics and other recreational drugs with mental health and resilience during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10307955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37398594
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1184681
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