Cannabis patients show improvements in anxiety, pain and sleep

The first patients to be prescribed medical cannabis in the UK, report significant improvements in anxiety, pain and sleep. 

The clinical outcomes of the first group of patients captured in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry have been published in the  leading medical journal Neuropsychopharmacology Reports.

These patients are amongst the first to be prescribed this treatment in the UK since legalisation of cannabis-based medical products on prescription in November 2018.  

Analysis of patient-reported outcome measures following treatment with cannabis medicines in this study found statistically significant improvements in anxiety, pain and sleep quality scores as well as general quality of life at one and three months following treatment. 

The study analysed clinical outcomes of the first 129 patients enrolled in the Registry and found that cannabis medicines were well tolerated, with a side effect rate of 24 per 100 patients.

This compares favourably to commonly prescribed painkillers such as morphine or codeine.  

The UK Medical Cannabis Registry records patient‐reported outcome measures, clinical effectiveness measures, and side effect questionnaires which are remotely administered to patients through an online  web‐based platform at baseline, one month, three months, six months, and then six  monthly intervals.

This forms part of the Real-World Evidence platform which now includes over 2,000 patients. 

They concluded: “This study suggests that CBMP therapy may be associated with an improvement in health-related quality-of-life outcomes as self-reported by patients. CBMPs are also demonstrated to be relatively safe in the short to medium-term.”