Is the Association Between Alcohol Consumption and Mental Well-Being in University Students Linear, Curvilinear or Absent?

Abstract

Background: Both alcohol consumption and mental well-being problems have been found to be prevalent in higher educated students and often have severe consequences. However, previous findings of the association between these constructs are mixed, possibly because often linear models are fitted, while some theories suggest a curvilinear association between the two concepts. Objectives: To clarify previously mixed findings, the current study compared curvilinear and linear models for the relationship between alcohol consumption and mental well-being in university students. Because of potential gender differences in this relationship, these models were explored for females and males separately. Data from the first cross-sectional online survey wave of the Healthy Student Life project including 2,631 female and 998 male students was used. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-consumption was used to measure alcohol consumption. Mental well-being was assessed by six sub-concepts (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, life satisfaction, happiness, and self-rated mental health). Results: For females both linear (for anxiety, life satisfaction, and self-rated mental health) and curvilinear (for depression, stress, and happiness) associations were found, while for males no support for either curvilinear or linear models was found. Conclusions: Results should be interpreted with caution due to the small effect sizes in the relationships for females but may suggest that testing the curvilinear association between alcohol consumption and mental well-being is an important future endeavor.

Author contributions

SG and JV conceived the Healthy Student Life (HSL) project; SS, KvH, TvN, SG, and JV designed the HSL project; KvH collected the data and prepared the dataset under the supervision of SS, TvN, SG, JV; BvB conceived the research plan for the current manuscript, under supervision of JV and SS; BvB designed the analyses plan, and wrote a pre-registration under supervision of JV; BvB analyzed the data and wrote a thesis under the supervision of JV; BvB and JV drafted and finalized the manuscript; SS, KvH, TvN, SG gave constructive feedback for intellectual content to the draft of the manuscript.

Ethical approval and consent

The Healthy Student Life project was ethically approved by the Ethical Committee of Social Sciences of Radboud University (ECSS-2021-086). Participants gave active consent.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

The dataset in this manuscript is part of a larger project (the Healthy Student Life project, https://www.ru.nl/bsi/research/group-pages/healthy-student-life/.). The dataset and scripts generated and analyzed for the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Radboud University.