Associations Between Self-reported Inhibitory Control, Stress, and Alcohol (Mis)use During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK: a National Cross-sectional Study Utilising Data From Four Birth Cohorts
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Abstract
We explored (1) self-reported changes in alcohol use during the pandemic in the UK and (2) the extent to which self-reported inhibitory control and/or stress were associated with any change in drinking behaviour. We used a UK-based cross-sectional online survey administered to four nationally representative birth cohorts ( N = 13,453). A significant minority of 30- (29.08%) and 50-year-olds (26.67%) reported drinking more, and between 32.23 and 45.02% of respondents reported feeling more stressed depending on the cohort. Stress was associated with hazardous drinking among 30-year-olds (OR = 3.77, 95% CI 1.15 to 12.28). Impatience was associated with both increased alcohol use (1.14, 95% CI 1.06, 1.24) and hazardous drinking (1.20, 95% CI 1.05, 1.38) among 19-year-olds. Risk-taking was associated with hazardous drinking for 30-year-olds (OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.05, 1.32). These data highlight concerns for those at risk of alcohol misuse and alcohol-related harm during COVID-19 lockdowns.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.24.20197293: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Figures were generated using ggplot2 (version 3.3.2) for R (version 3.6.2) was used to create figures. ggplot2suggested: (ggplot2, RRID:SCR_014601)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: We acknowledge several limitations in our study. First, the survey was designed to capture information across several domains other than those relevant here. Therefore, to mitigate known issues related to respondent burden (e.g., satisficing), brevity was prioritised, which …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.24.20197293: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources Figures were generated using ggplot2 (version 3.3.2) for R (version 3.6.2) was used to create figures. ggplot2suggested: (ggplot2, RRID:SCR_014601)Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: We acknowledge several limitations in our study. First, the survey was designed to capture information across several domains other than those relevant here. Therefore, to mitigate known issues related to respondent burden (e.g., satisficing), brevity was prioritised, which inevitably resulted in less detail than may be ideal in some of the measures used. For instance, single-item measures were used to assess risk-taking, impatience, and stress which may fail adequately to capture the full scope of these constructs (i.e., these measures may suffer from reduced content validity). This increases the uncertainty surrounding estimates calculated using these measures. Therefore, the use of single–item measures may also inflate standard errors and risk for type II error. Some of this potential error is offset by our large sample size; however, we found some effects that were not statistically significant despite relatively large effect sizes (e.g., among thirty-year-olds that reported increased stress, OR = 2.21, 95% CI 0.99 to 4.94). Second, there may be individual differences in the way each question was interpreted. For instance, feelings of stress are subjective and vary between–individuals [70]. Therefore, while some may find the pandemic and related period of social isolation as extremely stressful, others will find lockdown less stressful than pre–pandemic life. This may offer another explanation for why some that reported poor inhibitory control and lower level...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No funding statement was detected.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.24.20197293: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable This was due to only two fifty-year-olds females falling into this category. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources [ INSERT TABLE 1 HERE] Outcome measures Alcohol use behaviour was measured using five questions taken from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT; appendix p2). AUDITsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.24.20197293: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable This was due to only two fifty-year-olds females falling into this category. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources [ INSERT TABLE 1 HERE] Outcome measures Alcohol use behaviour was measured using five questions taken from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT; appendix p2). AUDITsuggested: NoneResults from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
We acknowledge several limitations in our study that must be considered. First, the survey was designed to capture information across several domains other than those relevant here. 17 Therefore, to mitigate known issues related to respondent burden (e.g., satisficing), brevity was prioritised which meant less detail in some of the measures used. For instance, single-item measures were used to assess risk-taking, impatience, and stress which may suffer from reduced content validity – thus, potentially increasing the risk for type II errors through inflated standard errors. Some of this potential error is offset by our large sample size; however, we found some effects that were not statistically significant despite moderate effect sizes (e.g., among thirty-year-olds that reported increased stress, ORadjusted = 2·18, 95% CI = 0·97 to 4·89). Further, there may be individual differences in the phenomenology of stress. For instance, some people may perceive boredom as not being stressful compared to a pre-pandemic life. Therefore, this may explain why some that reported poor inhibitory control and lower levels of stress also reported increased alcohol use. Second, there is no way to independently verify self-report drinking, and it is well-known that people under-estimate the alcohol consumption when asked on questionnaires due to social desirability bias, and often a lack of detailed memory of drinking episodes. It may, therefore, be that our data under-represents the true extent...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
About SciScore
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