Meaning in life and stress-related drinking: A multicohort study of college students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT: During the COVID-19 pandemic, college students have experienced heightened stressors and reported stress-related drinking. To identify potential protective factors among college students, we investigate the possibility that finding meaning and purpose in one's life may lessen the strength of the association between stress and alcohol consumption in a multicohort sample of college students (N = 694; 64.8% women) recruited between November 2019 and September 2021. Consistent with expectations, negative binomial regressions revealed significant interactions, such that higher stress was only associated with more past-month alcohol use among individuals who reported low levels of meaning in life. The buffering role of meaning in life appeared to be robust; interaction results held when investig

SUBMITTER: Jaffe AE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8842409 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature