Assessment of adherence, efficacy, and safety of medical cannabis

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Created On: 08/09/2022

In addition to identifying treatment adherence, efficacy, and safety, the objective of this prospective study was to characterize the medical cannabis patient population.

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Key take away

Supervised treatment with medical marijuana has high adherence and appears to be effective and safe to minimize pain levels.

Background

In addition to identifying treatment adherence, efficacy, and safety, the objective of this prospective study was to characterize the medical cannabis patient population.

Method

At six months, efficacy, safety, and adherence were evaluated in medicinal cannabis patients. The proportion of patients who bought the medication out of all the patients (excluding patients transferred to another cannabis clinic and deceased cases) was used to measure treatment adherence. While efficacy was defined as at least a moderate enhancement in the patient's health with no major adverse effects or treatment interruption, safety was evaluated by the frequency of adverse effects.

Result

Cancer (49.5%) and pain (non-specific, 29.3%) were the most common reasons necessitating treatment. Males made up 51.1 percent of the population, with an average age of 54.6 ± 20.9 years. Notably, 30.2% of the subjects said they had previously used cannabis. During the study's follow-up, 17.3% subjects quit receiving therapy (n = 1,735) and 19.4% patients died (n = 1,938).

Overall, 34.2% individuals (n = 1,675) reported that the most frequent adverse effects were psychoactive effect (4.3%), sleepiness (4.4%), increased hunger (4.7%), dry mouth (6.7%), and dizziness (8.2%). At six months, 70.6% of subjects reported overall success with their treatments.

Young age, employment, active driving, past cannabis use, and cigarette smoking were all linked to successful treatment outcomes, according to multivariable logistic regression analysis.

Conclusion

In addition to a reduction in pain levels, an increase in quality of life, and a decrease in the use of concurrent drugs, the therapy with medical cannabis demonstrated good adherence, high safety with a low incidence of adverse events, and a high rate of efficiency in the prescribed treatment.