The Increased Alcohol and Marijuana Use Associated with the Quality of Life and Psychosocial Aspects: a Study During the Covid-19 Pandemic in a Brazilian University Community

The primary practice adopted to reduce Covid-19 contamination is social distancing (SD). SD had significant consequences on alcohol/drug use, quality of life, and psychosocial aspects. In the university community specifically, SD produces a collective traumatic event with changes in the work routine by the suspension of presence. This study aims to identify and analyze the associations of increased alcohol and marijuana consumption on the quality of life and psychosocial aspects of the university community (students, professors, and technical and administrative staff) at a Brazilian public university during SD due to Covid-19 pandemic. This descriptive and cross-sectional study used an online questionnaire to obtain information from 2790 university community participants. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 22. The analysis included descriptive associations performed using Spearman’s correlation coefficient and p < 0.05 was taken as statistically significant. The participants’ majority was 62% female, 95.4% students, 73% were 17–25 years old, 33.4% had income between 1 and 3 minimum wage, and 48% of the university community “totally adhered to SD.” The increased alcohol consumption during SD was associated with a worsening in quality of life (p = 0.001), health satisfaction (p = 0.015), the meaning of life (p = 0.040), ability to concentrate (p = 0.001), satisfaction with yourself (p = 0.029), and frequency of negative feelings (p = 0.001); in contrast, increased alcohol use improved satisfaction with peer support (p = 0.042), as well as increased marijuana use improved satisfaction with sex life (p < 0.001). The increased alcohol use was higher in women (30.5%) than in men (26.7%) and was negatively associated with more quality of life and psychosocial aspects among women than men. Students were the segment that presented the highest frequency of associations with increased alcohol and/or marijuana use in the three domains analyzed. This study innovated by associating increased alcohol and/or marijuana use with worsening quality of life and psychosocial aspects rather than evaluating them apart. Future studies must identify whether this association between increased alcohol use, mainly, and the worsening quality of life and psychosocial aspects during the SD period is maintained or improved with the return to face-to-face activities at the university, with particular attention to women and students. Psychologists and other mental health professionals should be called upon to develop interventions to meet emerging mental health needs.