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Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many countries to issue far-reaching policy measures that may have led to increased substance use. Higher education students may have been disproportionally affected due to the rearrangement of educational life and their susceptibility to psychosocial distress and subs...

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Autores principales: Tholen, Robert, Ponnet, Koen, Van Hal, Guido, De Bruyn, Sara, Buffel, Veerle, Van de Velde, Sarah, Bracke, Piet, Wouters, Edwin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998911/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35410029
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074348
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author Tholen, Robert
Ponnet, Koen
Van Hal, Guido
De Bruyn, Sara
Buffel, Veerle
Van de Velde, Sarah
Bracke, Piet
Wouters, Edwin
author_facet Tholen, Robert
Ponnet, Koen
Van Hal, Guido
De Bruyn, Sara
Buffel, Veerle
Van de Velde, Sarah
Bracke, Piet
Wouters, Edwin
author_sort Tholen, Robert
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many countries to issue far-reaching policy measures that may have led to increased substance use. Higher education students may have been disproportionally affected due to the rearrangement of educational life and their susceptibility to psychosocial distress and substance use. The current study examined associations between pandemic-related stressors, psychosocial distress, and self-reported alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use before and during the first wave of the pandemic. Data were collected in Belgium as part of the COVID-19 International Student Well-being Study (C19 ISWS) and analyzed using multinomial logistic regression analyses. The sample contained 18,346 higher education students aged 17 to 24 (75% women). Overall use of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis as well as binge drinking decreased during the pandemic, perhaps due to limited social gatherings. Moving back to the parental home was associated with decreased substance use, while depressive symptoms were associated with increased substance use. Perceived threat and academic stress were associated with increased binge drinking among heavy bingers and increased tobacco use. Decreases among students who moved back to their parental home may be explained by increased informal social control. Increased substance use was associated with a number of stressors and psychosocial distress, which suggests that some students may have been self-medicating to manage their mental health amidst the pandemic. Public health policy concerning substance use may prove to be less effective if not tailored to particular subgroups within the student population.
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spelling pubmed-89989112022-04-12 Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic Tholen, Robert Ponnet, Koen Van Hal, Guido De Bruyn, Sara Buffel, Veerle Van de Velde, Sarah Bracke, Piet Wouters, Edwin Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The COVID-19 pandemic prompted many countries to issue far-reaching policy measures that may have led to increased substance use. Higher education students may have been disproportionally affected due to the rearrangement of educational life and their susceptibility to psychosocial distress and substance use. The current study examined associations between pandemic-related stressors, psychosocial distress, and self-reported alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use before and during the first wave of the pandemic. Data were collected in Belgium as part of the COVID-19 International Student Well-being Study (C19 ISWS) and analyzed using multinomial logistic regression analyses. The sample contained 18,346 higher education students aged 17 to 24 (75% women). Overall use of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis as well as binge drinking decreased during the pandemic, perhaps due to limited social gatherings. Moving back to the parental home was associated with decreased substance use, while depressive symptoms were associated with increased substance use. Perceived threat and academic stress were associated with increased binge drinking among heavy bingers and increased tobacco use. Decreases among students who moved back to their parental home may be explained by increased informal social control. Increased substance use was associated with a number of stressors and psychosocial distress, which suggests that some students may have been self-medicating to manage their mental health amidst the pandemic. Public health policy concerning substance use may prove to be less effective if not tailored to particular subgroups within the student population. MDPI 2022-04-05 /pmc/articles/PMC8998911/ /pubmed/35410029 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074348 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Tholen, Robert
Ponnet, Koen
Van Hal, Guido
De Bruyn, Sara
Buffel, Veerle
Van de Velde, Sarah
Bracke, Piet
Wouters, Edwin
Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Substance Use among Belgian Higher Education Students before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort substance use among belgian higher education students before and during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8998911/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35410029
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19074348
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