Daily Reports of Positive and Negative Affect and Alcohol and Marijuana Use Among College Student and Nonstudent Young Adults

Abstract

Background Daily affect and substance use covary among college students, but little is known about these associations among young adults not in college. Objectives The current pilot study examines associations between positive and negative affect and alcohol and marijuana use, with a focus on differences between college student and non-student young adults. Methods High school seniors completed a baseline survey during the spring of 2012 and were then randomly selected to participate in an intensive measurement follow-up. Participants in the follow-up (N=72, 40.3% men, 77.8% White, 66.7% full-time college students) completed up to 14 consecutive web-based daily surveys during the fall after high school completion. Multilevel models in which days (Level 1) were nested in persons (Level 2) were estimated. Results Weekend days were associated with increased alcohol use among all young adults, increased marijuana use among college students, and decreased marijuana use among non-students. For young adults not in college, greater daily positive affect was associated with increased likelihood of binge drinking, consuming a greater number of drinks, and lower odds of marijuana use; greater daily negative affect was associated with lower odds of alcohol use and lower odds of binge drinking for non-students. For college students, greater daily negative affect was associated with lower odds of marijuana use. Conclusions/Importance Daily affect and alcohol and marijuana use covary among young adults, though these associations differ between students and non-students. Results highlight the need to examine predictors of alcohol and marijuana use among young adults who do not attend college.

A Daily Diary Study of Drinking and Nondrinking Days in Nonstudent Alcohol Users

“…The average number of reports completed was around 10 out of the 14 possible days. These compliance rates are similar to those reported previously by Patrick and colleagues (2016) with a sample of recent high school graduates. They found a compliance rate of 82.7% for at least one daily survey, 75% for at least half of days, and 67% for at least 10 days.…”

“…To our knowledge, there has only been one prior investigation examining the drinking behavior of nonstudents utilizing a daily diary approach (Patrick, Yeomans-Maldonado, & Griffin, 2016); however, this study was restricted only to recent high school graduates, and thus, findings regarding generalizability to other nonstudents remain limited. While there have been a handful of investigations of daily drinking patterns with noncollege populations (e.g., Goldman, Greenbaum, Darkes, Brandon, & Del Boca, 2011; Lau-Barraco, Braitman, Linden-Carmichael, & Stamates, 2016; Lau-Barraco, Braitman, Stamates & Linden-Carmichael, 2016a, 2016b; Reich, Cummings, Greenbaum, Moltisant, & Goldman, 2015), these investigations used a retrospective method via the timeline follow-back (TLFB) procedure, which has been shown to yield less accurate reports of drinking than daily approaches (Carney, Tennen, Affleck, Del Boca, & Kranzler, 1998).…”

The contexts of heavy drinking: A systematic review of the combinations of context-related factors associated with heavy drinking occasions

“…Negative or positive states of mood were found to be associated with heavier or lighter drinking depending on the individual’s traits and environmental characteristics that these emotions are combined with [57, 61, 63, 72, 82, 86, 93]. Heavy drinking is particularly likely to occur on days when a lot of negative emotion or negative interpersonal events are experienced for individuals who are socially anxious [80], have low self-esteem, high shame or high neuroticism [54, 73, 77], have high social support [43], are less educated [61], have high drinking-to-cope motives [78, 82] or have low drinking to conform motives [78].…”

“…Heavy drinking is particularly likely to occur on days when a lot of negative emotion or negative interpersonal events are experienced for individuals who are socially anxious [80], have low self-esteem, high shame or high neuroticism [54, 73, 77], have high social support [43], are less educated [61], have high drinking-to-cope motives [78, 82] or have low drinking to conform motives [78]. In contrast, studies suggested that people with low shame [73], non-students [86], students not affiliated with a sorority [72], men with low attention spans [57] and women with high attention spans [57] are less likely to engage in heavy drinking on days they have negative mood. Also, individuals with low social anxiety or low drinking to cope motives tend to drink less on days they experience negative interpersonal interactions [78, 80].…”

Factores predictores del consumo de alcohol en adolescentes: datos de un estudio prospectivo de 1 año de seguimiento

“…Existen datos que demuestran la asociación entre distintas características del grupo de población adolescente y el consumo de alcohol y otras drogas. Por ejemplo, los jóvenes que estudian bachillerato (Patrick, Yeomans-Maldonado y Griffin, 2016) tienen mayor prevalencia de consumo de alcohol, en los años que dura la escolarización, que los no estudiantes, que presentan más consumo de marihuana (Johnston, O'Malley, Miech, Bachman y Schulenberg, 2012;O'Malley y Johnston, 2002). Sin embargo, a largo plazo, las personas que no cursaron bachillerato tienden a tener mayores consumos de alcohol y más problemas de uso de otras sustancias en la etapa adulta, comparados con aquellos que sí estudiaron (Lanza y Collins, 2006;Patrick et al, 2016;White, Labouvie y Papadaratsakis, 2005).…”