A new study finds that patients who used medical marijuana for three months improved on a variety of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures, including physical functioning, bodily pain, social functioning, fatigue and general health.
“Gains were observed in all HRQoL domains assessed after three months of medical marijuana use,” note authors from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Public Health Management Corporation, also in Philadelphia. In several measures, however—including physical functioning and pain—patients’ age played a significant role, “with older participants displaying less improvement than younger participants.”
New medical marijuana users experienced improvements across all domains of HRQoL over the first three months of medical marijuana use for any of the more than 20 qualifying medical conditions for use in. Notably, participants endorsed greater than 20 percent increases in ratings of their role limitations due to physical health problems and emotional problems, and in social functioning after three months of medical marijuana use.
