Background
With the impending legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, it is
important to examine the strength of association between cannabis use and
common mental health concerns including depression, anxiety, and suicide and
the extent to which these associations have changed over time. It is also important
to examine the moderating effects of developmental age and biological sex on
these associations.
Methods
This study uses Statistics Canada data from the 2002 and 2012 Canadian
Community Health Survey’s Mental Health Component (CCHS-MH) which
represent repeated cross-sectional surveys from nationally representative samples
of Canadians 15 years of age and older (2002 n=36,984; 2012 n=25,113). Stepwise
multivariate analyses were performed using linear regression for
psychological distress and binary logistic regression for Major Depressive
Episode (MDE) and suicidal thoughts and attempts. Time was accounted for as a
binary indicator (2002 vs. 2012) and an interaction term between cannabis use and
time was added to all the models. Additional interaction terms were added to the
models to test the moderating effects of cannabis frequency, developmental age,
and biological sex. Sensitivity analyses were performed to adjust for other
substance use and socioeconomic covariates. Weighting and bootstrapping was
utilized to present results reflective of the Canadian population.
Results
Cannabis use was positively associated with emotional problems, and this
association strengthened over time, particularly for depression and suicidal
thoughts and attempts. These temporal associations were similar across age
groups and for males and females, and remained after controlling for other
substance use and socioeconomic status.
Conclusions
Findings provide a baseline assessment of the Canadian population prior
to legalization and direction for health promotion and prevention campaigns.
Results highlight the need for awareness and regular monitoring of the cooccurrence of cannabis use and emotional problems and offer guidance for future research. / Thesis / Master of Health Sciences (MSc) / Using Statistics Canada data from the 2002 and 2012 Canadian
Community Health Survey’s Mental Health Component, this dissertation
determines the strength of association between cannabis use and common mental
health concerns including depression, anxiety, and suicide and the extent to which
these associations have changed over time. Cannabis use was positively
associated with emotional problems, and this association strengthened over time,
particularly for depression and suicidal thoughts and attempts. These temporal
associations were similar across age groups and for males and females, and
remained after controlling for other substance use and socioeconomic status.
These results add novel insights to the existing literature about the changing relationship between cannabis use and emotional problems over time and potential mechanisms of this change are discussed. Given the impending legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, clinical and research implications of results are discussed at length.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/23388 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Halladay, Jillian |
| Contributors | Georgiades, Katholiki, Clinical Epidemiology/Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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