De Relatie Tussen Cannabisgebruik en Depressie

Abstract

Cannabis has been the most used soft drug in developed societies for the past two decades. A contradictory picture of the consequences of cannabis is presented in current literature. Cannabis would increase the risk of depression in some studies, while in others no relationship with depression is found or social demographic factors would moderate this relationship. Annually depression care costs society 1.6 billion, and cannabis use seems to slow down depression treatment. In this study, multiple questionnaires (N = 87) where used to investigate whether cannabis use increases symptoms of depression, and whether sex and educational level have a moderating effect on this relationship. Results showed a significant effect between cannabis use and depression (F (1, 82) = 10.50, p <.01). This indicates that heavier cannabis use results in a greater chance of showing depression symptoms. Sex and educational level do not appear to moderate this relationship. Limitations of this research are the small sample size, which means that existing relationships may not have been found. Also, the variable education level was not well distributed, which means that the research data can only be generalized to middle and highly educated persons. Recommendations for follow-up research are to conduct a larger-scale research into the relationship between cannabis use and depression, while simultaneously looking at a normally distributed variable education level. Finally, cannabis use appears to increase the chance of showing depression symptoms. For effective depression care, depression treatments must take a person’s cannabis use into account.