Drinking behavior at the beginning and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: results of a literature review

Background and objective: It is well known that alcohol consumption and abuse, as well as alcohol-induced problems, increase during difficult economic times. Previous studies showed increased alcohol consumption in the 2003 SARS outbreak in China. The review examines global changes in alcohol consumption under current SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) pandemic. Materials and methods: The databases PubMed, Ovid, Cochrane Library, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of Science with a cut-off date of 11 January 2022 were used. An initial hit count of 791 publications was found. After reading the title and abstract, 62 texts were still eligible. After reviewing the full text, 40 studies were included in this review. Results: Study results were available from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. Increases as well as reductions in alcohol consumption were shown. Studies examining multiple waves of the pandemic found that alcohol consumption increased with duration of the pandemic. Binge drinking played a large role in this. There were very large regional differences in the increase in alcohol consumption: from about 10% of respondents to > 45%. In most studies, alcohol consumption was about the same for 40-50% of respondents and decreased for 30-40%. Conclusions: Further study follow-ups under the continuing pandemic are relevant. Since the populations studied were predominantly of working age, occupational prevention measures of elevated stress levels for some of the respondents with increased alcohol consumption seem reasonable.