An Investigation of the associations between hangover symptom cluster severity, individual differences, and cognitive performance.

Royle, William

Abstract

Alcohol hangover is the combination of negative symptoms experienced after a single episode of alcohol consumption, when blood alcohol concentration is approaching 0. Hangover has economic costs and links to alcohol-related health outcomes, but neither the mechanisms of hangover, nor the mediators of hangover experience are fully understood. Mixed evidence has been found for a variety of individual difference-based influences on hangover severity, including measures of personality, and emotion regulation ability. This may be explained by the use of self-report measures of hangover severity that reduce hangover to a single score. Hangover symptomologies may elucidate relationships between hangover severity and individual differences, as well as hangover-related outcomes, such as cognitive performance in hangover. This thesis explores severity of symptom clusters in hangover and their relation to individual differences and cognitive performance during hangover. A survey addressing hangover symptom severity indicated two symptom clusters in the Acute Hangover Scale, ‘headache and thirst’, and ‘gastric and cardiovascular’ symptoms. Additionally, both symptom clusters were shown to be independently positively associated with pain catastrophising. A further survey investigating psychological distress, maladaptive coping, and hangover symptom cluster severity confirmed these symptom clusters. Neither psychological distress or maladaptive coping were associated with symptom cluster severity, but were both related to a 1-item measure of hangover severity, with maladaptive coping partially mediating the relationship between distress and 1-item hangover severity. Finally, a novel paradigm was developed to permit the remote experimental investigation of cognitive performance during hangover. Results showed increased effects of task irrelevant information on performance, with hangover symptom cluster severity correlating with different aspects of performance during hangover. Collectively, results indicate the presence of symptom clusters in hangover associated with different performance outcomes, providing novel insight into hangover outcomes. Future research into hangover symptom clusters may potentially help to further elucidate both physiological mechanisms of hangover, and relationships between hangover experience, individual differences, and health outcomes.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Acceptance Date: Mar 14, 2025
• Online Publication Date: Mar 27, 2025
• Deposit Date: Mar 18, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 28, 2025
• Citations for Published Sections: Royle, S., Owen, L., Roberts, D., & Marrow, L. (2020). Pain catastrophising predicts alcohol hangover severity and symptoms. Journal of clinical medicine, 9(1), 280.
• Award Date: Mar 27, 2025