Original Articles SELF-REPORTED SURVEY ON MEDICINAL USES OF CANNABIS IN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Abstract

Background:
Since the medicinal use of cannabis is well-known, there was a need to assess the knowledge, beliefs and experience regarding indications, safety and side effects of prescribing medicinal cannabis among Pakistani health workers.

Material and methods:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among medical and dental students and practitioners selected from different campuses of the two public sector medical universities of Karachi. A self-reported questionnaire was used to record knowledge, beliefs and experience regarding indications, safety and side effects of prescribing medicinal cannabis on a 5-point Likert scale. Data & analyzed was described using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, v. 24.0.

Results:
A total number of 126 health professionals participated in this study with mean age 24.3 ± 2.5 years and more female (n=90) than males (n=36). The overall distribution of knowledge scores was obtained for ‘neutral opinion’. Majority believed that medicinal cannabis can be used for treatment of dementia, chronic non-cancer pain, epilepsy and has anti-tumor effects.

Conclusion:
It can be concluded that medicinal cannabis knowledge is limited among health care professionals. Measures must be taken to eliminate the knowledge gap of the health care providers about effectiveness and qualifying conditions of these products.