Self-reported mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic and its association with alcohol and cannabis use: a latent class analysis.
BMC Psychiatry
; 22(1): 306, 2022 04 30.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1892188
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Mental health problems and substance use co-morbidities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic are a public health priority. Identifying individuals at high-risk of developing mental health problems and potential sequela can inform mitigating strategies. We aimed to identify distinct groups of individuals (i.e., latent classes) based on patterns of self-reported mental health symptoms and investigate their associations with alcohol and cannabis use.METHODS:
We used data from six successive waves of a web-based cross-sectional survey of adults aged 18 years and older living in Canada (6,021 participants). We applied latent class analysis to three domains of self-reported mental health most likely linked to effects of the pandemic anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Logistic regression was used to characterize latent class membership, estimate the association of class membership with alcohol and cannabis use, and perform sex-based analyses.RESULTS:
We identified two distinct classes (1) individuals with low scores on all three mental health indicators (no/low-symptoms) and (2) those reporting high scores across the three measures (high-symptoms). Between 73.9 and 77.1% of participants were in the no/low-symptoms class and 22.9-26.1% of participants were in the high-symptom class. We consistently found across all six waves that individuals at greater risk of being in the high-symptom class were more likely to report worrying about getting COVID-19 with adjusted odds ratios (aORs) between 1.72 (95%CI1.17-2.51) and 3.51 (95%CI2.20-5.60). Those aged 60 + were less likely to be in this group with aORs (95%CI) between 0.26 (0.15-0.44) and 0.48 (0.29-0.77) across waves. We also found some factors associated with class membership varied at different time points. Individuals in the high-symptom class were more likely to use cannabis at least once a week (aOR = 2.28, 95%CI1.92-2.70), drink alcohol heavily (aOR = 1.71, 95%CI1.49-1.96); and increase the use of cannabis (aOR = 3.50, 95%CI2.80-4.37) and alcohol (aOR = 2.37, 95%CI2.06-2.74) during the pandemic. Women in the high-symptom class had lower odds of drinking more alcohol during the pandemic than men.CONCLUSIONS:
We identified the determinants of experiencing high anxiety, depression, and loneliness symptoms and found a significant association with alcohol and cannabis consumption. This suggests that initiatives and supports are needed to address mental health and substance use multi-morbidities.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Cannabis
/
Substance-Related Disorders
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
BMC Psychiatry
Journal subject:
Psychiatry
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S12888-022-03917-z
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