TY - JOUR
T1 - The CannTeen Study
T2 - Cannabis use disorder, depression, anxiety, and psychotic-like symptoms in adolescent and adult cannabis users and age-matched controls
AU - Lawn, Will
AU - Mokrysz, Claire
AU - Lees, Rachel
AU - Trinci, Katie
AU - Petrilli, Kat
AU - Skumlien, Martine
AU - Borissova, Anna
AU - Ofori, Shelan
AU - Bird, Catherine
AU - Jones, Grace
AU - Bloomfield, Michael AP
AU - Das, Ravi K
AU - Wall, Matthew B
AU - Freeman, Tom P
AU - Curran, H Valerie
N1 - The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council (MRC; award number MR/P012728/1) to HVC and TPF. AB is supported by a fellowship from the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre and a NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. HVC is supported by grants from the MRC, UK Department of Health and by the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre. MBW’s primary employer is Invicro LLC, a contract research organisation which performs commercial research for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. MAPB is supported by grants from UK Research and Innovation, University College London, the British Medical Association Foundation for Medical Research and the National Institute for Health University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre.
PY - 2022/12/31
Y1 - 2022/12/31
N2 - BACKGROUND: Adolescence is characterised by psychological and neural development. Cannabis harms may be accentuated during adolescence. We hypothesised that adolescents would be more vulnerable to the associations between cannabis use and mental health and addiction problems than adults.METHOD: As part of the 'CannTeen' study, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis. There were 274 participants: split into groups of adolescent users (
n = 76; 16-17 years old) and controls (
n = 63), and adult users (
n = 71; 26-29 years old) and controls (
n = 64). Among users, cannabis use frequency ranged from 1 to 7 days/week, while controls had 0-10 lifetime exposures to cannabis. Adolescent and adult cannabis users were matched on cannabis use frequency (mean=4 days/week). We measured Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory and Psychotomimetic States Inventory-adapted.
RESULTS: After adjustment for covariates, adolescent users were more likely to have severe CUD than adult users (odd ratio = 3.474, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.501-8.036). Users reported greater psychotic-like symptoms than controls (
b = 6.004, 95% CI = 1.211-10.796) and adolescents reported greater psychotic-like symptoms than adults (
b = 5.509, 95% CI = 1.070-9.947). User-group was not associated with depression or anxiety. No significant interactions between age-group and user-group were identified. Exploratory analyses suggested that cannabis users with severe CUD had greater depression and anxiety levels than cannabis users without severe CUD.
CONCLUSION: Adolescent cannabis users are more likely than adult cannabis users to have severe CUD. Adolescent cannabis users have greater psychotic-like symptoms than adult cannabis users and adolescent controls, through an additive effect. There was no evidence of an amplified vulnerability to cannabis-related increases in subclinical depression, anxiety or psychotic-like symptoms in adolescence. However, poorer mental health was associated with the presence of severe CUD.
AB - BACKGROUND: Adolescence is characterised by psychological and neural development. Cannabis harms may be accentuated during adolescence. We hypothesised that adolescents would be more vulnerable to the associations between cannabis use and mental health and addiction problems than adults.METHOD: As part of the 'CannTeen' study, we conducted a cross-sectional analysis. There were 274 participants: split into groups of adolescent users (
n = 76; 16-17 years old) and controls (
n = 63), and adult users (
n = 71; 26-29 years old) and controls (
n = 64). Among users, cannabis use frequency ranged from 1 to 7 days/week, while controls had 0-10 lifetime exposures to cannabis. Adolescent and adult cannabis users were matched on cannabis use frequency (mean=4 days/week). We measured Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory and Psychotomimetic States Inventory-adapted.
RESULTS: After adjustment for covariates, adolescent users were more likely to have severe CUD than adult users (odd ratio = 3.474, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.501-8.036). Users reported greater psychotic-like symptoms than controls (
b = 6.004, 95% CI = 1.211-10.796) and adolescents reported greater psychotic-like symptoms than adults (
b = 5.509, 95% CI = 1.070-9.947). User-group was not associated with depression or anxiety. No significant interactions between age-group and user-group were identified. Exploratory analyses suggested that cannabis users with severe CUD had greater depression and anxiety levels than cannabis users without severe CUD.
CONCLUSION: Adolescent cannabis users are more likely than adult cannabis users to have severe CUD. Adolescent cannabis users have greater psychotic-like symptoms than adult cannabis users and adolescent controls, through an additive effect. There was no evidence of an amplified vulnerability to cannabis-related increases in subclinical depression, anxiety or psychotic-like symptoms in adolescence. However, poorer mental health was associated with the presence of severe CUD.
KW - Adolescent
KW - Adult
KW - Humans
KW - Anxiety/epidemiology
KW - Cross-Sectional Studies
KW - Depression/epidemiology
KW - Marijuana Abuse/epidemiology
KW - Psychotic Disorders/epidemiology
KW - Case-Control Studies
U2 - 10.1177/02698811221108956
DO - 10.1177/02698811221108956
M3 - Article
C2 - 35772419
SN - 0269-8811
VL - 36
SP - 1350
EP - 1361
JO - Journal of Psychopharmacology
JF - Journal of Psychopharmacology
IS - 12
ER -
