ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2020
Stress, Anxiety, and Change in Alcohol Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings Among Adult Twin Pairs.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
62 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 104 citations in OpenAlex.
- Alcohol Consumption During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Critical Review.Human psychopharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- The impact of COVID-19 lockdown on snacking habits, fast-food and alcohol consumption: A systematic review of the evidence.Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2022Pooled it
- Changes in alcohol use during COVID-19 and associations with contextual and individual difference variables: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors · 2022Pooled it
- Alcohol and other substance use during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2021Pooled it
- Week-Ahead Prediction of High-Risk Drinking Episodes Among Young Adults Using Wearable Biosignals and Psychological Vulnerabilities: Prospective Observational Machine Learning Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Observational
- Socio-economic factors associated with alcohol and cannabis use across waves of the COVID-19 pandemic: an intersectional analysis of a repeated cross-sectional survey.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Alcohol use among adolescents in eight sub-Saharan African countries: evidence from the Global School-based student health survey (2012-2017) using the socio-ecological model.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Pandemic-Related Worries and Stressors and Use of Tobacco and Alcohol Among Postpartum Women in the United States Early in the COVID-19 Pandemic.Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974) · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Pandemic Experiences and Hazardous Alcohol Use: Findings of Higher and Lower Risk in a Heavy-Drinking Midwestern State.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Social Support and Mutual Aid During a Pandemic: Experiences of African American, Latina, and White Sexual Minority Women.Sexual and gender diversity in social services · 2025Article
- In its very early phases, COVID-19 shifts the associations between alcohol consumption and psychological symptoms in young adults.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
- Change in alcohol consumption during the Covid-19 pandemic and associations with mental health and financial hardship: results from a survey of Wisconsin patients with cancer.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2025Article
- Large-Scale Deep Learning-Enabled Infodemiological Analysis of Substance Use Patterns on Social Media: Insights From the COVID-19 Pandemic.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- Effects of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Alcohol Consumption, Hangovers and Smoking Among Young Adults (n = 140) in Germany: An On-Line Study.Human psychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Pandemic paradox: traffic mortality trends during COVID-19 in Campinas, 2019-2023.Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2025Observational
- Perceived social measures and drinking behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand.Journal of public health policy · 2024Article
- The Influence of Health-Related Behavior Profiles on College Students' Perceptions of COVID-19 Safety Measures.Journal of community health · 2024Article
- Insights from the EQUALS4COVID19 study on migrant mental health in Portugal: a cross-sectional mixed-methods approach.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Drinking While Stressed and Drinking to Cope Differentially Relate to Mental Health.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Changes in the frequency and amount of alcohol intake before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Journal of occupational health · 2024Article
2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted the lives of people worldwide since being declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Social restrictions aimed at flattening the curve may be associated with an increase in stress and anxiety, which may increase the use of alcohol as a coping mechanism. The objective of this study was to examine if stress and anxiety were associated with changes in alcohol use in a sample of adult twins. Twins allowed us to control for genetic and shared environmental factors that would confound the alcohol - mental health relationship. Twins (N = 3,971; 909 same-sex pairs) from the Washington State Twin Registry (WSTR) completed an online survey examining several health-related behaviors and outcomes and their self-reported changes due to COVID-19. About 14% of the respondents reported an increase in alcohol use. We found an association between both stress and anxiety and increased alcohol use, where twins with higher levels of stress and anxiety were more likely to report an increase in alcohol consumption. The associations were small and confounded by between-family factors and demographic characteristics. However, there was no significant difference in stress or anxiety levels between non-drinkers and those who reported no change in alcohol use. Our findings suggest that individuals' mental health may be associated with changes in alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.