Association of extent of cannabis use and psychotic like intoxication experiences in a multi-national sample of First Episode Psychosis patients and controls

Abstract

Aims: First Episode Psychosis (FEP) patients who use cannabis experience more frequent psychotic and euphoric intoxication experiences compared to controls. It is not clear whether this is consequent to patients being more vulnerable to the effects of cannabis use or to their heavier pattern of use. We aimed to determine whether extent of use predicted psychotic-like and euphoric intoxication experiences in FEP patients and controls and whether this differs between groups. Methods: We analysed data on lifetime cannabis using patients (n=655) and controls (n=654) across 15 sites from six countries in the EU-GEI study (2010-2015). We used multiple regression to model predictors of cannabis-induced experiences and to determine if there was an interaction between caseness and extent of use. Results: Caseness, frequency of cannabis use and money spent on cannabis predicted psychotic-like and euphoric experiences, independent of other experiences (p≤0.001). For psychotic-like experiences there was a significant interaction for caseness x frequency of use (p<0.001) and caseness x money spent on cannabis (p=0.001) such that FEP patients had increased experiences at increased levels of use compared to controls. There was no similar significant interaction for euphoric experiences (p>0.5). Conclusions and Relevance: FEP patients are particularly sensitive to increased psychotic-like, but not euphoric experiences, at higher frequency and amount of cannabis use compared to controls. This suggests a specific psychotomimetic response in patients related particularly to heavy cannabis use.