The association of cannabis use on inpatient psychiatric hospital outcomes.
The associations between cannabis use and psychosis are well documented in numerous studies. There is a need to evaluate the impact of cannabis use on inpatient psychiatric utilization and outcomes. To evaluate the impact of cannabis use on psychiatric hospital outcomes. This study was conducted between April 20, 2015 and October 20, 2015. All patients (n 120) admitted to Denver Health with psychotic symptoms were administered a urine toxicology screening testing for the presence of 11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ There were 120 patients. Twenty nine were women and 91 were men. Patients testing positive for THC-COOH had a shorter length of stay compared to patients testing negative for THC-COOH, after adjusting for age, prior psychiatric admissions, history of a psychotic-spectrum disorder, and comorbid additional substance use (p 0.02). There were no differences in 30-day readmissions, 30-day post-discharge presentation to the Denver Health psychiatric emergency department, BPRS scores, and medication administration. Patients presenting with psychotic symptoms and cannabis use require shorter inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations. This study is the first to quantify this observation and highlights the need for future clinical decision-making tools that would ideally correlate cannabis use with the degree of potential need for expensive and scarce mental health resources, such as psychiatric hospitalization.