Using Alcohol and Cannabis as Sleep Aids: Associations with Descriptive Norms Among College Students

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Young adults may use alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids, a risky behavior that can worsen sleep health over time and lead to substance dependence. Perceived norms for such risky behaviors are often overestimated and related to one’s own use. This cross-sectional study examined: (a) the extent to which college students overestimated the prevalence of alcohol and cannabis use as sleep aids (i.e., perceived descriptive norms), and (b) the extent to which perceived descriptive norms were associated with students’ own use of alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids.

Methods

2,642 undergraduate college students (M_age = 18.84 years) reported past 30-day use of alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids. Participants also estimated the percent of college students who use alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids (i.e., perceived descriptive norms).

Results

One-sample t-tests revealed participants, on average, overestimated the norms for using alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids. Participants who endorsed past 30-day use of these substances as sleep aids overestimated these norms to an even greater extent. Count regression models showed perceived descriptive norms were associated with students’ use of alcohol and of cannabis as sleeps aids, in respective models, even when controlling for sleep difficulties.

Conclusions

College students may overestimate the prevalence of using alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids, and students who believe these behaviors are more normative report more frequent use of these substances as sleep aids. Taken together, findings may highlight the potential for norm-correcting strategies as a prudent approach to reducing/preventing the use of alcohol and cannabis as sleep aids.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ 1900 (71.92%) participants completed the survey on or after March 1, 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

² We use the term “predict” throughout in the statistical sense, but do not imply causal inferences due to cross-sectional data.

Additional information

Funding

This study was conducted with support from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R34AA026909, R37AA012547, & T32AA007455). Partial support for this research came from a Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development research infrastructure grant, P2CHD042828, to the Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology at the University of Washington. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.