The Change in Psychoactive Substance Consumption in Relation to Psychological Stress During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Uruguay

Abstract

Objective: to analyze how the health crisis associated with the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affected psychoactive substance consumption in Uruguay. Method: An online survey was answered by 1916 Uruguayan citizens between March 26th and April 5th, 2020. They were surveyed on psychoactive substance use before and after the instauration of a recommended quarantine, and on increases in frequency and volume of use (during the quarantine) of the psychoactive substance they reported as having consumed the most in the year prior to the quarantine, and psychological distress experienced during the last month. Results: The main substances consumed during the quarantine were alcohol, tobacco, marihuana, and psychopharmaceuticals. Approximately 29.0% increased the volume (and 17.7% the frequency) of use of the substance they had consumed the most the year before the instauration of the quarantine. Moreover, 5.6% initiated the consumption of a new psychoactive substance during the quarantine, mostly marihuana and psychopharmaceuticals. Psychological distress was significantly higher in women, in participants under 30 years old and in those that increased the volume of their preferred substance or increased the volume of the second preferred psychoactive substance. Membership into the group reporting an increase in the volume of use of the preferred psychoactive substance was associated with greater psychological distress. Conclusions: These results indicate an association between the instauration of the recommended quarantine in Uruguay and greater psychoactive substance use during the period, as well as an association between increased psychoactive substance use during this period and levels of psychological stress. These results are relevant in terms of public health and public policies.
 Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic, Uruguay, psychoactive substances

El uso de los antidepresivos en los procesos de sujeción/subjetivación biomédica

“…Hoy, los antidepresivos y la depresión han vuelto a ocupar espacio en los medios de comunicación nacionales y atraen la atención de investigadores a partir de la emergencia sociosanitaria provocada por la pandemia de COVID-19. Un estudio realizado entre marzo y abril de 2020, al comienzo de la pandemia en el país, señala que durante esa primera etapa en que el gobierno nacional impulsó medidas de aislamiento social, se incrementaron los niveles de malestar psicológico en la población y los niveles de consumo de sustancias psicoactivas (Ruiz et al, 2021;Lagos, 2021). Dentro de estas sustancias los psicofármacos fueron la segunda droga a la cual los sujetos recurrieron cuando quisieron agregar una nueva sustancia a las que ya consumían con anterioridad (Ruiz et al, 2021;Lagos, 2021).…”

“…Un estudio realizado entre marzo y abril de 2020, al comienzo de la pandemia en el país, señala que durante esa primera etapa en que el gobierno nacional impulsó medidas de aislamiento social, se incrementaron los niveles de malestar psicológico en la población y los niveles de consumo de sustancias psicoactivas (Ruiz et al, 2021;Lagos, 2021). Dentro de estas sustancias los psicofármacos fueron la segunda droga a la cual los sujetos recurrieron cuando quisieron agregar una nueva sustancia a las que ya consumían con anterioridad (Ruiz et al, 2021;Lagos, 2021). Del mismo modo, un estudio sobre el impacto psicológico de la crisis del Covid 19 en adultos residentes en Uruguay, estima que los síntomas de depresión y ansiedad durante el aislamiento podrían haberse incrementado en cerca de un 50% (Paz et al, 2021).…”

Predictive factors of the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students: a cross-cultural study in six Ibero-American countries

“…These studies show large variations in the prevalence of depression and anxiety ranging from 14% to 56%, suggesting the inclusion of individual and cultural differences in the studies that explain this heterogeneity (Appleby et al, 2022;Musa et al, 2020;Ochnik et al, 2021;Yehudai et al, 2020). For example, some studies suggest that the emotional and psychological impact has been greater in Arab and Latin American countries (Moret & Murphy, 2022;Ruiz et al, 2022). Independent studies carried out on the university population also show a range of variation between Latin American countries with prevalence of distress between 8% and 11% in Argentine students (Leonangeli et al, 2022), 33% and 34% in the case of Colombia and Ecuador (Arévalo & Vega, 2022;Ochnik et al, 2021), 42% in Mexico (Cortés & Vuelvas, 2022) and 52% in Spain (Marques et al, 2021).…”

“…Given the evidence, this study was designed to explore psychological impact of the pandemic among university students from Ibero-American countries, considered among the most affected countries worldwide (Moret & Murphy, 2022;Ruiz et al, 2022). Although there were several previous studies that contrasted the prevalence of distress between Western, African, and Asian countries (Ochnik et al, 2021), crosscultural studies in Spanish-speaking countries that control for both cultural aspects and individual differences have not yet been published.…”

Changes in Alcohol Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Young Adults: The Prospective Effect of Anxiety and Depression

“…Moreover, some studies [29,32] simply asked about self-perceived changes in alcohol consumption (i.e., whether participants drank more, the same or less than before COVID-19) without including prior objective measures of drinking quantity and frequency. For instance, in one such study, participants (Uruguayans 18 to 60 years old) were asked if they believed they had increased the volume of use of their preferred substance after the instantiation of the COVID-19 related quarantine [40]. These approaches may be susceptible to recall bias, affecting the validity of their results.…”