• Gen Hosp Psychiatry · Jan 2018

    Comparative Study

    Patterns and correlates of medical cannabis use for pain among patients prescribed long-term opioid therapy.

    • Shannon M Nugent, Bobbi Jo Yarborough, Ning X Smith, Steven K Dobscha, Richard A Deyo, Carla A Green, and Benjamin J Morasco.
    • Center to Improve Veteran Involvement in Care, VA Portland Health Care System, United States; Mental Health and Clinical Neurosciences Division, VA Portland Health Care System, United States; Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health & Science University, United States. Electronic address: Shannon.nugent@va.gov.
    • Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2018 Jan 1; 50: 104-110.

    ObjectiveLittle is known about co-occurring long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) and medical cannabis use. We compared characteristics of patients prescribed LTOT who endorsed using medical cannabis for pain to patients who did not report cannabis use.MethodParticipants (n=371) prescribed LTOT completed self-report measures about pain, substance use, and mental health.ResultsEighteen percent of participants endorsed using medical cannabis for pain. No significant differences were detected on pain-related variables, depression, or anxiety between those who endorsed medical cannabis use and those who did not. Medical cannabis users had higher scores of risk for prescription opioid misuse (median=17.0 vs. 11.5, p<0.001), rates of hazardous alcohol use (25% vs. 16%, p<0.05), and rates of nicotine use (42% vs. 26%, p=0.01). Multivariable analyses indicated that medical cannabis use was significantly associated with risk of prescription opioid misuse (β=0.17, p=0.001), but not hazardous alcohol use (aOR=1.96, 95% CI=0.96-4.00, p=0.06) or nicotine use (aOR=1.61, 95% CI=0.90-2.88, p=0.11).ConclusionThere are potential risks associated with co-occurring LTOT and medical cannabis for pain. Study findings highlight the need for further clinical evaluation in this population. Future research is needed to examine the longitudinal impact of medical cannabis use on pain-related and substance use outcomes.Published by Elsevier Inc.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…