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Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand

OBJECTIVE: Cannabis is therapeutic for numerous medical conditions. The demand for medical cannabis (MC) use in cancer patients is increasing, even with many patients lacking proper knowledge about MC. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the attitudes and beliefs of cancer patients demanding MC...

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Autores principales: Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn, Phimha, Surachai, Panomai, Nitchatorn, Laohasiriwong, Wongsa, Sakphisutthikul, Chutikan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: West Asia Organization for Cancer Prevention 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9375599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35485690
http://dx.doi.org/10.31557/APJCP.2022.23.4.1309
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author Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn
Phimha, Surachai
Panomai, Nitchatorn
Laohasiriwong, Wongsa
Sakphisutthikul, Chutikan
author_facet Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn
Phimha, Surachai
Panomai, Nitchatorn
Laohasiriwong, Wongsa
Sakphisutthikul, Chutikan
author_sort Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: Cannabis is therapeutic for numerous medical conditions. The demand for medical cannabis (MC) use in cancer patients is increasing, even with many patients lacking proper knowledge about MC. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the attitudes and beliefs of cancer patients demanding MC use in northern Thailand. METHODS: This cross-sectional study administered multistage random sampling to recruit 565 cancer patients who indicated that they demand MC use in northern Thailand. These patients responded to a self-administered structured questionnaire about their feelings on MC. We used descriptive statistics, including frequency and percentage, to describe categorical data, whereas we used mean and standard deviation for continuous data. RESULTS: Out of a total of 565 participants, 59.7% were female, 40.3% were male, and 46.4% were middle-aged adults, with a mean age of 58.3 ± 13.0 years. Of these participants who demanded the use of MC, the top three most common types of cancers were breast cancer (27.8%), colorectal cancer (21.4%), and lung cancer (10.6%). Most of the participants (51.2%) had early-stage cancer, and 46.5% received chemotherapy. We found that patients who demanded MC use had a generally positive attitude (53.3%). Among the patients who required MC use, 55.4% believed that it would help relieve side effects caused by modern treatments, cure cancer (38.8%), relieve suffering from cancer symptoms (30.6%), and cause one to live longer and to improve their health (16.3%). Most patients’ decisions regarding MC use (45.3%) demanded MC use after receiving modern treatments, and 95.6% demanded MC use with modern treatment. Overall, these patients (65.3%) needed MC from the MC clinic in the Government Hospital. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the attitudes and beliefs towards MC use among cancer patients, their positive expectations of the outcome, and the need for MC use.
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spelling pubmed-93755992022-08-19 Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn Phimha, Surachai Panomai, Nitchatorn Laohasiriwong, Wongsa Sakphisutthikul, Chutikan Asian Pac J Cancer Prev Research Article OBJECTIVE: Cannabis is therapeutic for numerous medical conditions. The demand for medical cannabis (MC) use in cancer patients is increasing, even with many patients lacking proper knowledge about MC. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the attitudes and beliefs of cancer patients demanding MC use in northern Thailand. METHODS: This cross-sectional study administered multistage random sampling to recruit 565 cancer patients who indicated that they demand MC use in northern Thailand. These patients responded to a self-administered structured questionnaire about their feelings on MC. We used descriptive statistics, including frequency and percentage, to describe categorical data, whereas we used mean and standard deviation for continuous data. RESULTS: Out of a total of 565 participants, 59.7% were female, 40.3% were male, and 46.4% were middle-aged adults, with a mean age of 58.3 ± 13.0 years. Of these participants who demanded the use of MC, the top three most common types of cancers were breast cancer (27.8%), colorectal cancer (21.4%), and lung cancer (10.6%). Most of the participants (51.2%) had early-stage cancer, and 46.5% received chemotherapy. We found that patients who demanded MC use had a generally positive attitude (53.3%). Among the patients who required MC use, 55.4% believed that it would help relieve side effects caused by modern treatments, cure cancer (38.8%), relieve suffering from cancer symptoms (30.6%), and cause one to live longer and to improve their health (16.3%). Most patients’ decisions regarding MC use (45.3%) demanded MC use after receiving modern treatments, and 95.6% demanded MC use with modern treatment. Overall, these patients (65.3%) needed MC from the MC clinic in the Government Hospital. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the attitudes and beliefs towards MC use among cancer patients, their positive expectations of the outcome, and the need for MC use. West Asia Organization for Cancer Prevention 2022-04 /pmc/articles/PMC9375599/ /pubmed/35485690 http://dx.doi.org/10.31557/APJCP.2022.23.4.1309 Text en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
spellingShingle Research Article
Sukrueangkul, Alongkorn
Phimha, Surachai
Panomai, Nitchatorn
Laohasiriwong, Wongsa
Sakphisutthikul, Chutikan
Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title_full Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title_fullStr Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title_short Attitudes and Beliefs of Cancer Patients Demanding Medical Cannabis Use in the North of Thailand
title_sort attitudes and beliefs of cancer patients demanding medical cannabis use in the north of thailand
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9375599/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35485690
http://dx.doi.org/10.31557/APJCP.2022.23.4.1309
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