Work

Impact of pre‐trauma recreational drug use on mental health outcomes among survivors of the Israeli Nova Festival terrorist attack

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: These data provide the first evidence that CBD can ameliorate symptoms in the CHR population.We found that treatment with CBD for three weeks was accompanied by a reduction in the severity of CHR symptoms and the distress associated with psychotic experiences.As we did not find an effect of CBD on the STAI-S score, these effects were unlikely to be driven by a reduction in state anxiety.Recent meta-analyses suggest that existing pharmacological and psychological treatments have little effect on symptoms or the incidence of psychosis in CHR subjects 1 , and there is currently no licensed treatment for this population.Consistent with previous evidence 3-5 , the incidence of adverse effects in the CBD-treated group was not different from the placebo-treated group, making CBD a good candidate treatment for CHR subjects.No subject dropped out of the CBD arm.A limitation of the study is the small sample size, underscoring the preliminary nature of the evidence.Because treatment was limited to 21 days, we were not able to examine the effect of treatment on the risk of later transition to psychosis.As some clinical outcome data were missing, we analyzed effects on clinical outcomes using a last observation carried forward method of imputation.However, when we subsequently repeated the analyses but restricted inclusion to participants with complete data for the respective measures, the main results remained unchanged.Our findings indicate that short-term treatment with CBD can ameliorate the symptoms of CHR state for psychosis, and is well tolerated.These results highlight the potential of CBD as a novel treatment for psychosis, and the need for large-scale efficacy stud-ies to further evaluate its clinical utility.

Source: World Psychiatry

DOI: 10.1002/wps.21254