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A common challenge in developmental research is the amount of incomplete and missing data that occurs from respondents failing to complete tasks or questionnaires, as well as from disengaging from the study (i.e., attrition). This missingness can lead to biases in parameter estimates and, hence, in the interpretation of findings. These biases can be addressed through statistical techniques that adjust for missing data, such as multiple imputation. Although this technique is highly effective, it has not been widely adopted by developmental scientists given barriers such as lack of training or misconceptions about imputation methods and instead utilizing default methods within software like listwise deletion. This manuscript is intended to provide practical guidelines for developmental researchers to follow when examining their data for missingness, making decisions about how to handle that missingness, and reporting the extent of missing data biases and specific multiple imputation procedures in publications.

We explored (1) self-reported changes in alcohol use during the pandemic in the UK and (2) the extent to which self-reported inhibitory control and/or stress were associated with any change in drinking behaviour. We used a UK-based cross-sectional online survey administered to four nationally representative birth cohorts (N = 13,453). A significant minority of 30- (29.08%) and 50-year-olds (26.67%) reported drinking more, and between 32.23 and 45.02% of respondents reported feeling more stressed depending on the cohort. Stress was associated with hazardous drinking among 30-year-olds (OR = 3.77, 95% CI 1.15 to 12.28). Impatience was associated with both increased alcohol use (1.14, 95% CI 1.06, 1.24) and hazardous drinking (1.20, 95% CI 1.05, 1.38) among 19-year-olds. Risk-taking was associated with hazardous drinking for 30-year-olds (OR = 1.18, 95% CI 1.05, 1.32). These data highlight concerns for those at risk of alcohol misuse and alcohol-related harm during COVID-19 lockdowns. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11469-021-00599-8.

Background: Exposure to stress and trait impulsivity are independent predictors of relapse in recovering alcoholics, but potential mechanisms that link these two risk-factors in terms of their putative additive or interactive contributions to relapse are not known. The aim of this study was to use a model of stress-induced relapse to test the hypothesis that acute psychosocial stress increases craving for alcohol in social drinkers. We also tested the hypothesis that change in craving could be explained by variability in impulsivity and risk-taking.Methods: Participants completed questionnaires to assess drinking behaviour (Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire [ADQ]; and an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test [AUDIT]), craving (Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire [DAQ] and impulsivity (Barrett Impulsiveness Scale [BIS]). Participants also completed two computer tasks to assess risk-taking and impulsivity, the Balloon Analogue Risk Test (BART) and a continuous performance task (CPT). Participants then underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and completed a final DAQ to assess post-stress craving.Results: Participants showed an increase in craving following exposure to the TSST. In addition, risk-taking was positively correlated with change in craving.Conclusions: Our data suggested that acute psychosocial stress increases subjective craving in social drinkers, but that the effects may be trait-dependent, with stress-induced increases in craving correlated with risk-taking.

Adequately addressing missing data is a pervasive issue in the social sciences. Failure to correctly address missing data can lead to biased or inefficient estimation of parameters, confidence intervals, and significance tests. Multiple imputation is a statistical technique for handling missing data that involves using existing data to generate multiple datasets of plausible values for missing data that each incorporate random components to reflect their uncertainty. Each dataset is analyzed individually and identically, and parameter estimates are pooled into one set of estimates, variances, and confidence intervals. Although this technique is widely used, there is little consensus on what constitutes best practices in multiple imputation, including with regard to assessing the extent of missing data bias and reporting multiple imputation procedures in publications. This decision tree was crowdsourced at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) and revised thereafter. This document is intended to provide practical guidelines for researchers to follow when examining their data for missingness and making decisions about how to handle that missingness. We primarily offer recommendations for multiple imputation, but also indicate where the same decisional guidelines are appropriate for other types of missing data procedures such as full imputation maximum likelihood (FIML).

SummaryBackgroundThe impact COVID-19 on the UK population’s alcohol intake is unknown. We assessed change in alcohol-use and hazardous drinking during the first lockdown, and tested the hypothesis that variation would be predicted by stress and inhibitory-control.MethodsWe interrogated cross-sectional data from the first sweep of the COVID-19 longitudinal survey, comprising 4 national cohorts (13 453 respondents, 19-62 years). Respondents self-reported their alcohol use, stress, and inhibitory control. We regressed change in drinking and alcohol misuse on stress and inhibitory control, adjusting for covariates to account for demographics.Findings29·08% 30-year-olds increased alcohol use post-COVID-19. Stress was a major contributing factor to increased alcohol use in 30-year olds (adjusted OR 3·92, 95% CI 1·17 - 13·15), as was inhibitory control in 19-year-olds (adjusted OR 1·14, 95% CI 1·05 - 1·23), 30-year-olds (adjusted OR 1·18, 95% CI 1.05 - 1.33) and 50-year-olds (adjusted OR 1·06, 95% CI 1·01 - 1·12). We identified several interactions between stress and inhibitory control in all age groups, suggesting a complex age-specific relationship between the risk factors and alcohol use and misuse during the pandemic.InterpretationIn the UK, alcohol use increased in up to 30% of the population during COVID-19, resulting from a combination of factors including poor inhibitory control and stress. It is critical in future lockdowns that clinicians and public health officials are aware of the challenges faced by different age groups, and prioritise and personalise interventions and prevention measures appropriately.FundingESRC, Foundation for Liver Research.Putting research into contextEvidence before the studyWe searched PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO Discovery, bioRxiv, medRxiv, and PsyArXiv for articles published between Jan 1, 2020 and Sep 1, 2020, with the following keywords: “covid-19”, “coronavirus”, and “alcohol”. We prioritised the selection of references based on relevance, importance, opportunity for further reading, and whether the work had been peer-reviewed. There have been several published articles that address the issue of alcohol use and misuse during COVID– 19, including a number of editorials and some limited empirical work. There were no nationally representative studies about alcohol use in the UK. In addition, all of the studies identified simply reported figures of those using alcohol during the pandemic, and to the best of our knowledge, none covered risk-factors for alcohol misuse.Added value of this studyUsing data from the COVID-19 national longitudinal survey (first sweep), comprising data from 18 000 people across five national cohorts (aged 19-74), we tested the hypothesis that people who reported higher levels of stress, and who self-reported low impulse-control, would show higher rates of alcohol use/misuse during the pandemic lockdown. First, we show the proportion of adults across the UK that are drinking more during the pandemic, and how this differs by age and gender. Second, we show that while higher levels of stress were associated with higher levels of alcohol intake in some (e.g., 30-year-olds), we found that the relationship was complex and multifaceted. Stress-induced alcohol use and misuse was dependent on age and personality characteristics, with low impulse-control predictive of higher levels of alcohol consumption in 19-, 30- and 50-year-olds, and several stress x personality interactions.Implications of all the available evidenceStress, as well as poor inhibitory control, were risk factors for the susceptibility to increased alcohol intake and hazardous drinking during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. The government, healthcare professionals, and the global media should consider the impact of change of lifestyle and stress that might impact on alcohol consumption among at-risk individuals during any future lockdowns. Similarly, additional support for those that may go on to develop an alcohol use disorder or relapse needs to be put in place.

Rationale Chronic alcohol misuse can escalate into alcohol use disorder (AUD). The causal mechanisms through which recreational social drinking develops into compulsive uncontrolled alcohol misuse are multifaceted. For example, stress is an important risk factor that influences alcohol craving in both healthy and addicted individuals. In addition, those that are high in impulsivity/risk taking drink more and are at greater risk of developing addiction. At present, however, it is not possible accurately to predict those at risk of escalation in alcohol use, or of developing AUD. Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate how underlying physiological and personality traits affect stress-induced craving for, and consumption of, alcohol, in a sample of social drinkers. The primary hypothesis was that impulsivity/risk-taking would modulate stress-induced alcohol craving and consumption. Methods Thirty-nine participants (22 male and 17 female; mean age = 23.92 years [SD = 4.90]) were randomly allocated to ‘stress’ and ‘no-stress’ groups; in the stress group, participants took part in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Participants completed several questionnaires and computer tasks in order to assess prior alcohol use, impulsivity/risk-taking, stress-reactivity, craving and physiological biomarkers of stress. Finally, participants completed a voluntary drinking task, in which increasing numbers of presses on a computer keyboard were reinforced with 5-ml shots of 37% ABV vodka (plus mixer). Results Participants exposed to the TSST showed an increase in craving following the stressor. Several factors predicted voluntary drinking, including risky decision making, slow HR recovery from stress, poor vagal tone during recovery from stress and greater stress reactivity. Surprisingly, we found no correlation between craving and consumption. Conclusions Our data suggest that variation in physiological stress parameters and poor decision-making abilities increase risk of stress-induced alcohol consumption. This may provide a useful translational framework through which we can further study early predictive markers for the shift between controlled recreational drinking to uncontrolled alcohol misuse, including AUD. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s00213-018-5027-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Once considered a uniquely human attribute, behavioral laterality has proven to be ubiquitous among non□human animals, being frequently associated with different neurophenotypes in rodents and fish species. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a versatile vertebrate model system that has been widely used in translational neuropsychiatric research due their highly conserved genetic homology, well characterized physiological and extensive behavioral repertoire. Although the spontaneous left- and right-bias responses and associated behavioral domains (e.g. stress reactivity, aggression and learning) have previously been observed in other teleost species, no information regarding how spontaneous motor left-right bias responses of zebrafish predicts other behavioral domains has been described. Thus, we aimed to investigate the existence and incidence of natural left-right bias of adult zebrafish in the Y-maze test and explore any relationship of biasedness on the performance of different behavioral domains. This included learning about threat-cues in the fear conditioning test and locomotion and anxiety-related behavior in the novel tank diving test. In conclusion, we showed for the first time that zebrafish exhibit a natural manifestation of motor behavioral lateralization which can influence aversive learning responses. Although laterality did not change locomotion or anxiety-related behaviors, we found that biased animals had an altered exploration pattern in the Y-maze, making them easily discernable from their unbiased counterparts, and increased learning associated to fear cues.

Rationale: Hazardous drinking presents a global health risk and if chronic, can escalate into an alcohol use disorder. The causal mechanisms for the transition from controlled alcohol use to uncontrolled misuse and dependence are complex, and it is not presently possible to accurately predict those most at-risk of misusing alcohol, or of developing AUD. Objectives: We investigated the feasibility of using ecological momentary assessments, specifically related to daily stress and alcohol use, to study risk factors for hazardous drinking. We tested the hypothesis that in a sample of healthy drinkers, risk-taking would modulate the impact of daily self-reported stress on alcohol use.Methods: We characterised impulsivity/risk-taking in 23 participants (12 female; mean age = 24.59 [SD = 5.34]) using a battery of questionnaires and computer tasks. We then collected daily behavioural and physiological data related to self-reported stress levels and blood alcohol concentration consumption for 30 days.Results: Attrition and missing data rates were low, with an overall response rate of 92.6% We found support for our hypothesis, with higher risk-taking and impulsive participants drinking more following daily stressors. However, the picture was not clear, with participants drinking greater volumes of alcohol at weekends, and the interactions of stress x personality trait often differing on weekdays.Conclusions: This feasibility study demonstrated the potential for was the first to demonstrate that using ecological momentary assessments, such as, digital biomarkers to assess risk factors for alcohol misuse is a viable option for investigating the effects of neurocognitive endophenotypes and stress on alcohol misuse on a longitudinal basis.