Lifetime use of psychedelics is associated with better mental health indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Federico Cavanna
  2. Carla Pallavicini
  3. Virginia Milano
  4. Juan Cuiule
  5. Rocco Di Tella
  6. Pablo González
  7. Enzo Tagliazucchi

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Abstract

Background and aims

The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences represent a major challenge to the mental health and well-being of the general population. Building on previous work on the potential long-term benefits of psychedelics, we hypothesized that lifetime use of these drugs could be linked to better mental health indicators in the context of the ongoing pandemic.

Methods

Two anonymous online surveys were conducted between April and June 2020, including questions about lifetime experience with psychedelics and other psychoactive drugs, and psychometric scales designed to measure personality traits, anxiety, negative, and positive affect, well-being, and resilience. Principal component analysis was applied to divide the sample into groups of subjects based on their drug use reports.

Results

Five thousand six hundred eighteen participants (29.15 0.12 years, 71.97% female) completed both surveys and met the inclusion criteria, with 32.43% of the sample reporting at least one use of a psychedelic drug. Preliminary analyses showed that certain psychedelics were linked to improved mental health indicators, while other psychoactive drugs exhibited the opposite behavior. Lifetime psychedelic use was linked to increased openness and decreased conscientiousness, and to higher scores of positive affect. The reported number of past psychedelic experiences predicted higher scores of the secondary personality trait beta factor, which has been interpreted as a measure of plasticity. No significant associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and indicators of impaired mental health were observed.

Conclusion

We did not find evidence of an association between lifetime use of psychedelics and poor mental health indicators. Conversely, experience with psychedelic drugs was linked to increased positive affect and to personality traits that favor resilience and stability in the light of the ongoing crisis.

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  1. Version published to 10.1556/2054.2021.00172
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248519: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: All subjects provided informed consent and received no compensation for their participation.
    IRB: The procedure was included within a larger protocol for online experimentation approved by the ethics committee of Centro de Educación Médica e Investigaciones Clínicas Norberto Quirno.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableDue to the scope of the ethics approval, and because the local adaptation of psychometric scales is limited to male and female Argentinian adults, only participants older than 18 years old, residents of Argentina, and with male or female gender identity were retained for subsequent analysis.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    We must clarify certain limitations arising from methodology. First, it is not possible to corroborate the information given by the participants, especially concerning the identity and dose of the psychoactive drugs they consumed. Second, it is possible that variables outside the scope of our survey are influencing the results we obtained. Concerning this limitation, our principal component analysis aimed to alleviate the effect of confounds caused by poly-drug use by dividing the sample into disjoint groups depending on their principal component values. Finally, it was not possible to draw causal inferences due to our study design. In summary, we performed a survey to investigate the relationship between mental health, personality and past drug use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results do not suggest an association between past psychedelic use and impaired mental health indicators; on the contrary, we found evidence supporting a more resilient and stable personality structure in those subjects who reported repeated use of certain psychedelic compounds. This study adds to the existing literature on the relationship between mental health and lifetime psychedelic use by investigating self- reported measures of well-being during a highly challenging situation known to cause adverse psychological responses. Future studies should investigate with more detail whether our results can be attributed to the long-term changes induced by psychedelics, and how these changes relate to ...

    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.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248519v1 on medRxiv