A national study of clinical discussions about cannabis use among Veteran patients prescribed opioids

dc.contributor.authorZaman, Tauheed
dc.contributor.authorBravata, Dawn M.
dc.contributor.authorByers, Amy
dc.contributor.authorKrebs, Erin
dc.contributor.authorLeonard, Samuel
dc.contributor.authorAustin, Charles
dc.contributor.authorSandbrink, Friedhelm
dc.contributor.authorHasin, Deborah S.
dc.contributor.authorKeyhani, Salomeh
dc.contributor.departmentMedicine, School of Medicine
dc.date.accessioned2024-06-26T12:49:26Z
dc.date.available2024-06-26T12:49:26Z
dc.date.issued2024-03-16
dc.description.abstractBackground: The Veterans Health Administration tracks urine drug tests (UDTs) among patients on long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) and recommends discussing the health effects of cannabis use. Objective: To determine the occurrence of cannabis-related discussions between providers and patients on LTOT during six months following UDT positive for cannabis, and examine factors associated with documenting cannabis use. Design: We identified patients prescribed LTOT with a UDT positive for cannabis in 2019. We developed a text-processing tool to extract discussions around cannabis use from their charts. Subjects: Twelve thousand seventy patients were included. Chart review was conducted on a random sample of 1,946 patients. Main measures: The presence of a cannabis term in the chart suggesting documented cannabis use or cannabis-related discussions. Content of those discussions was extracted in a subset of patients. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between patient factors, including state of residence legal status, with documentation of cannabis use. Key results: Among the 12,070 patients, 65.8% (N = 7,948) had a cannabis term, whereas 34.1% (N = 4,122) of patients lacked a cannabis term, suggesting that no documentation of cannabis use or discussion between provider and patient took place. Among the subset of patients who had a discussion documented, 47% related to cannabis use for medical reasons, 35% related to a discussion of VA policy or legal issues, and 17% related to a discussion specific to medical risks or harm reduction strategies. In adjusted analyses, residents of states with legalized recreational cannabis were less likely to have any cannabis-related discussion compared to patients in non-legal states [OR 0.73, 95% CI 0.64-0.82]. Conclusions: One-third of LTOT patients did not have documentation of cannabis use in the chart in the 6 months following a positive UDT for cannabis. Discussions related to the medical risks of cannabis use or harm reduction strategies were uncommon.
dc.eprint.versionFinal published version
dc.identifier.citationZaman T, Bravata DM, Byers A, et al. A national study of clinical discussions about cannabis use among Veteran patients prescribed opioids. J Cannabis Res. 2024;6(1):12. Published 2024 Mar 16. doi:10.1186/s42238-024-00221-3
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1805/41906
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherSpringer Nature
dc.relation.isversionof10.1186/s42238-024-00221-3
dc.relation.journalJournal of Cannabis Research
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.sourcePMC
dc.subjectCannabis
dc.subjectCannabis use in Veterans
dc.subjectCannabis for pain
dc.subjectCannabis documentation
dc.subjectOpioids
dc.titleA national study of clinical discussions about cannabis use among Veteran patients prescribed opioids
dc.typeArticle
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