Abstract

Purpose

Poor sleep is one of the most common side effects of cancer treatment. One increasingly popular approach to manage side effects of cancer treatment is use of medicinal cannabis (MC).

Design

Cancer patients using MC participated in semi-structured interviews to assess their experiences with MC (n = 24). A multi-stage thematic analysis was applied to interview transcripts. Themes related to use of MC for sleep were extracted.

Findings

The majority reported MC use for sleep. These participants reported that MC improved sleep initiation and continuity, resulted in decreased use of sleep medications, and that improved sleep led to better health. No participant reported MC was ineffectual for sleep or caused undesirable side effects when used for sleep.

Conclusions

Cancer patients often utilize MC to specifically manage poor sleep. There is a need for rigorous studies assessing prevalence of use for this indication and clinical trials to assess comparative efficacy and safety.

中文翻译：

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癌症患者使用药用大麻睡眠的态度

摘要

目的

睡眠不足是癌症治疗最常见的副作用之一。一种越来越流行的管理癌症治疗副作用的方法是使用药用大麻 (MC)。

设计

使用 MC 的癌症患者参加了半结构化访谈，以评估他们对 MC 的体验（n = 24）。多阶段的主题分析被应用于采访记录。提取了与使用 MC 睡眠相关的主题。

发现

大多数报告 MC 用于睡眠。这些参与者报告说，MC 改善了睡眠的开始和连续性，导致睡眠药物的使用减少，并且改善的睡眠可以带来更好的健康。没有参与者报告 MC 在用于睡眠时对睡眠无效或引起不良副作用。

结论

癌症患者经常利用 MC 来专门管理睡眠不足。需要进行严格的研究来评估该适应症的使用率，并进行临床试验以评估比较疗效和安全性。