Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Both hangover and performance deficits have been documented the day after drinking to intoxication after breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) has returned to near zero. But few studies have examined the relationship between hangover and post-intoxication performance. METHOD: We performed secondary analyses of data from a previously reported controlled cross-over laboratory study to assess the relationship of hangover incidence and severity to sustained attention/reaction time the morning after drinking to about 0.11 g% BrAC. Relationships were investigated while controlling for gender, type of alcoholic beverage (bourbon or vodka), and neurocognitive performance after placebo. RESULTS: Hangover severity and neurocognitive performance were significantly correlated. Participants reporting stronger hangover were more impaired than those reporting little or no hangover. Comparing any to no hangover showed a trend in the same direction of effect. CONCLUSIONS: More intense hangover may indicate less fitness for duty in workers in certain safety-sensitive occupations, with implications for occupational alcohol policies.
Highlights
We previously reported the simple correlation of hangover severity and sustained attention/ reaction time the day after intoxication [35]
Data analyses—The relationship of Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) scores the morning after alcohol administration to hangover incidence was investigated with multiple regression, with the single hangover rating coded as “yes” versus “no” as the predictor variable and entering gender, beverage type, average daily alcohol volume, and baseline PVT score under placebo condition as covariates. (PVT score under placebo condition was included to control for differences in participants’ attention/reaction time in the absence of alcohol.) The regression was repeated for severity of hangover symptoms by changing the predictor variable to Acute Hangover Scale (AHS) total score
Hangover AHS score was a significant predictor of PVT score after alcohol, controlling for covariates; hangover incidence was borderline significant (p = .057)
Summary
Unknown, several review articles discuss a number of hypotheses [31,48,40]. Some portion (25–30%) of the population appears to be hangover resistant across a variety of laboratory, clinical and survey investigations [15,16]. The other, described below, found that hangover severity (measured on a validated scale) correlated with sustained attention/reaction time (univariate correlation), suggesting that hangover symptoms might contribute to impairment the day after intoxication [35]. Neither of these studies, controlled for factors that might be associated with neurocognitive performance or asked whether absence of hangover meant absence of residual effects on performance. Our previous studies have shown strong effects of intoxication on next-day sustained attention/reaction time in a psychomotor vigilance task [35,14], so this performance measure was selected for analysis. We expanded that analysis and hypothesized that hangover incidence and severity would correlate with the neurocognitive performance scores in the morning, when controlling for other variables that could affect next-day performance scores, such as gender, type of alcoholic beverage (bourbon versus vodka), and baseline (placebo condition) neurocognitive performance
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