Stress, Social Support, and Substance Use in the COVID-19 Pandemic

The present study investigated the relationships between stress, social support, loneliness, and substance use behaviors using the COVID-19 pandemic as a model. Participants (N = 185, M-age = 36.9, SDage = 5.87) were screened to be above the age of 21 and to have consumed alcohol in the previous 12 months and were asked to complete an online survey in February of 2021. Survey responses were analyzed to assess the hypothesized moderating effects of social support and loneliness on the Tension Reduction Theory's proposed relationship between perceived stress and substance use. Results demonstrated several negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely increased loneliness and perceived stress related to pandemic-specific stressors. Social support was negatively related to pandemic stress while loneliness and pandemic stress were positively related. Contradicting study hypotheses, negative binomial regression results indicated that increased pandemic stress did not predict alcohol consumption; on the other hand, loneliness was unexpectedly shown to predict fewer days-per-month alcohol use. This pattern of results suggests that more sophisticated multivariate models may be more appropriate to predict and model substance use than reductionistic theories of self-medication. Particularly given the unique contextual factors of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that substance use behaviors vary as functions of their social context. Pandemic factors that may have deterred greater alcohol use are discussed.