According to new research from the University of Antwerp, and Corvinus University of Budapest, students were more likely to report increased weekly drinking in countries with stricter COVID-19 limitations on social gatherings.

Robert Tholen, lead author and researcher from the University of Antwerp, and colleagues compared cross-country variations in the drinking behaviours of higher education students in 25 countries from before the COVID-19 pandemic to during lockdown measures. This involved using data from the COVID-19 International Student Well-being Study, surveying students from April to June 2020.

For most countries, a decrease in weekly drinking and a substantial decrease in binge drinking was observed, with school closures associated with decreased weekly drinking.

However, students were more likely to report increased weekly drinking in countries with stricter limitations on social gatherings. Significant increases in weekly drinking were observed in Canada, Germany, Norway, Israel, and the US.

“Binge drinking is associated with enhancement and social motives, peer behaviour, and social norms, which could explain why students in countries with stricter containment measures were more likely to report decreased binge drinking. Social settings in which binge drinking tends to occur may have been unavailable,” says Tholen and colleagues, including Petra Arnold, a research fellow at HUN-REN-CORVINUS (2019-2024).

Boredom, loneliness, psychological distress, lack of opportunities for leisure activities and sports, and the perception of reduced negative consequences of drinking, are drivers of increased alcohol consumption. Therefore, strict limitations on social gatherings may have acted as a stressor and resulted in maladaptive coping for some students, explain the researchers.

Prevention efforts aimed at higher education students should prioritise efforts to curb excessive drinking among potential risk groups, such as young men and those in psychological distress, with future research identifying groups that did not decrease weekly drinking after the removal of COVID-19 restrictions.

These findings were first published in the Journal of Prevention. Research institutions involved were based in Belgium, Hungary, Turkey, Norway, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, France, the UK, and the Netherlands.