How has university students’ drug use changed during Covid-19?

Abstract

The Covid-19 outbreak and the lockdown have had significant psychological and social impactson everyone’s life. Changing life circumstances and daily routines, job losses, uncertainty, haveput a psychological strain on us. As a consequence, we may experience risk behaviours moreoften than before. The aim of the study is to analyse how risk behaviours have changed due toCovid-19 among university students in Hungary, and to identify the psycho-social factors along which the shift can be explained. The analysis is based on the data of ‘Covid-19 InternationalStudent Well-Being Study’ – a study initiated and coordinated by the University of Antwerpeninvolving 75 universities from 26 countries. Four Hungarian universities – Corvinus Universityof Budapest, the University of Debrecen, the University of Miskolc, and the University of Szegedparticipated in the study. The survey was conducted among all university students who filledin an online questtioannaire in Spring 2020. Our results show that all risk behavoiurs havedeclined during the Covid-19 period. However, students who had had consumed drug beforeCovid-19 have been using them more frequently during the pandemic. Our results suggest thatthe recreational use have probably declined and the problematic use have probably increasedamong university students during the pandemic. Our results highlight the fact that students forwhom the crisis situation imposed by the quarantine was hard to handle are more likely to usesubstances more frequently, so offering them prevention and treatment options is crucial.