TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparing adult cannabis treatment-seekers enrolled in a clinical trial with national samples of cannabis users in the United States
AU - McClure, Erin A.
AU - King, Jacqueline S.
AU - Wahle, Aimee
AU - Matthews, Abigail G.
AU - Sonne, Susan C.
AU - Lofwall, Michelle R.
AU - McRae-Clark, Aimee L.
AU - Ghitza, Udi E.
AU - Martinez, Melissa
AU - Cloud, Kasie
AU - Virk, Harvir S.
AU - Gray, Kevin M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2017/7/1
Y1 - 2017/7/1
N2 - Background Cannabis use rates are increasing among adults in the United States (US) while the perception of harm is declining. This may result in an increased prevalence of cannabis use disorder and the need for more clinical trials to evaluate efficacious treatment strategies. Clinical trials are the gold standard for evaluating treatment, yet study samples are rarely representative of the target population. This finding has not yet been established for cannabis treatment trials. This study compared demographic and cannabis use characteristics of a cannabis cessation clinical trial sample (run through National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network) with three nationally representative datasets from the US; 1) National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2) National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III, and 3) Treatment: Episodes Data Set – Admissions. Methods Comparisons were made between the clinical trial sample and appropriate cannabis using sub-samples from the national datasets, and propensity scores were calculated to determine the degree of similarity between samples. Results showed that the clinical trial sample was significantly different from all three national datasets, with the clinical trial sample having greater representation among older adults, African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, adults with more education, non-tobacco users, and daily and almost daily cannabis users. Conclusions These results are consistent with previous studies of other substance use disorder populations and extend sample representation issues to a cannabis use disorder population. This illustrates the need to ensure representative samples within cannabis treatment clinical trials to improve the generalizability of promising findings.
AB - Background Cannabis use rates are increasing among adults in the United States (US) while the perception of harm is declining. This may result in an increased prevalence of cannabis use disorder and the need for more clinical trials to evaluate efficacious treatment strategies. Clinical trials are the gold standard for evaluating treatment, yet study samples are rarely representative of the target population. This finding has not yet been established for cannabis treatment trials. This study compared demographic and cannabis use characteristics of a cannabis cessation clinical trial sample (run through National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network) with three nationally representative datasets from the US; 1) National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2) National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III, and 3) Treatment: Episodes Data Set – Admissions. Methods Comparisons were made between the clinical trial sample and appropriate cannabis using sub-samples from the national datasets, and propensity scores were calculated to determine the degree of similarity between samples. Results showed that the clinical trial sample was significantly different from all three national datasets, with the clinical trial sample having greater representation among older adults, African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, adults with more education, non-tobacco users, and daily and almost daily cannabis users. Conclusions These results are consistent with previous studies of other substance use disorder populations and extend sample representation issues to a cannabis use disorder population. This illustrates the need to ensure representative samples within cannabis treatment clinical trials to improve the generalizability of promising findings.
KW - Cannabis
KW - Cannabis use disorder
KW - Clinical trial
KW - Generalizability
KW - Marijuana
KW - Sample representativeness
KW - Treatment
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U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.02.024
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.02.024
M3 - Article
C2 - 28511033
AN - SCOPUS:85033480313
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 176
SP - 14
EP - 20
JO - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
JF - Drug and Alcohol Dependence
ER -