Psychiatric Hospitalization and Length of Stay Differences in Cannabis Users and Non-Users with a Primary Discharge Diagnosis of Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder

Abstract

Background

The effects of cannabis use in vulnerable persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, continues to be elucidated.

Methods

We compared 55 cannabis-only users (Group 1) with 462 non-substance users (Group 2) on measures of length of stay and number of psychiatric hospitalizations with a primary discharge diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder using the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney non-parametric test for non-normal distributions, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Poisson regression analysis.

Results

Group 1 had a mean length of stay of 6.15 days (sd = 5.32 days) and Group 2 had a mean length of stay of 8.66 days (sd = 11.14 days) (i.e. Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney, p = .0347; log-transformed ANOVA, p = .0203). This difference was no longer statistically significant when controlling for three covariates (p = .1543). Poisson regressions for the mean number of admissions (1.84) were not statistically significant.

Conclusions

Cannabis use may not be a good predictor of length of stay, once covariates are considered, and mean number of hospitalizations in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Keywords:

• Cannabis
• psychosis
• schizophrenia
• schizoaffective disorder
• length of stay
• number of hospitalization

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the Department of Psychiatry, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, for their support of this research.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts or declarations of interest pertaining to this research.

Funding

No funding was received for this study.