Young adults are more likely to use multimodal cannabis on days with higher levels of stress and boredom. The corresponding study was published in Addictive Behaviors.
Young adulthood constitutes a period of life with high substance use risk. Co-use of substances during this period is common, with almost all young adults reporting past-month cannabis use also reporting past-month use of other substances like alcohol, nicotine/ tobacco, and other drugs.
"Given the evidence that day-level co-use is associated with more acute harms, it is important to elucidate day-level patterns of use and identify key correlates including loneliness, boredom, stress, and contextual factors (e.g., special occasion days)," wrote the researchers in their study.
"Identifying patterns of substance use and their correlates at the day-level can inform interventions to reduce the acute harms of substances use, particularly for days in which young adults engage in high-risk co-use behaviors," they added.
In the current study, researchers investigated how day-level substance use links to same-day stress, loneliness, boredom, and type of day correlates in a sample of 911 young adults from the US. Participants were an average of 19 years old and completed a 14-daily study in 2019, in which they reported their use of alcohol, cannabis and/ or nicotine/ tobacco.
Ultimately, the researchers identified six kinds of substance use days, of which 33.7% included vaping nicotine, 23.5% cannabis smoking, 17.1% alcohol only, 11.7% cannabis vaping, 7.3% multiple combustibles, and 6.7% multimodal cannabis. While stress and boredom were higher on multimodal cannabis days than other substance use days, alcohol days were characterized by lower levels of stress, boredom, and loneliness alongside a higher likelihood of being a special occasion or weekend.
“This study identified heterogeneous patterns of substance use behaviors among US young adults. Understanding these patterns is important for developing intervention strategies that are responsive to specific substance use on a given day,” wrote the researchers.
Sources: Science Direct
