Gender differences among treatment-seeking adults with cannabis use disorder: Clinical profiles of women and men enrolled in the Achieving Cannabis Cessation-Evaluating N-acetylcysteine Treatment (ACCENT) study.

Recent evidence suggests that women may fare worse than men in cannabis trials with pharmacologic interventions. Identifying baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking cannabis-dependent adults could inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. The current study compared baseline demographic, cannabis use, and psychiatric factors between women (n=86) and men (n=216) entering the Achieving Cannabis Cessation-Evaluating N-acetylcysteine Treatment (ACCENT) study, a multi-site randomized controlled trial conducted within the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network.

Results found that women reported greater withdrawal intensity (p=.001) and negative impact of withdrawal (p=.001), predominantly due to physiological and mood symptoms. Women were more likely to have lifetime panic disorder (p=.038) and current agoraphobia (p=.022), and reported more days of poor physical health (p=.006) and cannabis-related medical problems (p=.023). Women reporting chronic pain had greater mean pain scores than men with chronic pain (p=.006). Men and women did not differ on any measures of baseline cannabis use.

Conclusions: Cannabis-dependent women may present for treatment with more severe and impairing withdrawal symptoms and psychiatric conditions compared to cannabis-dependent men. This might help explain recent evidence suggesting that women fare worse than men in cannabis treatment trials of pharmacologic interventions. Baseline clinical profiles of treatment-seeking adults can inform gender-specific treatment planning and development. Cannabis-dependent women may benefit from integrated treatment focusing on co-occurring psychiatric disorders and targeted treatment of cannabis withdrawal syndrome.

Related protocols: CTN-0053