Cannabis induced psychosis: A comparative study between cannabis use disorder and cocaine use disorder

Psychosis involves delusions and hallucinations without insight, arising from primary psychiatric illness or brain damage from substances, neurological diseases, or other medical conditions. Genetic, environmental, and gene-environment interactions contribute. Among environmental factors, psychotropic substances are key removable facilitators. This retrospective study compared substance-induced psychosis prevalence between outpatients with cannabis use disorder and those with cocaine use disorder, excluding those with personal or family psychiatric history.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Psychosis can be defined as a combination of psychopathological symptoms including delusions and/or hallucinations without insight. Psychotic disorders may configure a primary psychiatric illness or represent the result of a functional/structural brain damage induced by substance use, neurological diseases or other medical conditions. They are multifactorial disorders in which genetic, environmental and gene-environment interaction factors contribute to the expressiveness of the symptoms. Among the environmental factors, psychotropic substances represent the most important removable facilitators of psychosis. In our study, we compared the prevalence of substance induced psychosis between a sample of patients affected by cannabis use disorder and a sample of patients affected by cocaine use disorder analyzing retrospectively the data of outpatients with no personal or family history of psychiatric illnesses.