KEELE RESEARCHERS HIT INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES
Research by a team from the School of Pharmacy, the Department of Psychiatry and the Research Institute for Primary Care and Health Sciences, commissioned by the Government's Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to investigate trends in schizophrenia, has been widely reported in the national and international media. The ACMD wanted to ascertain whether the rate of schizophrenia in the UK had changed in recent years, possibly due to cannabis use. A recent systematic review concluded that cannabis use increases risk of psychotic outcomes independently of confounding and transient intoxication effects. Furthermore, a model of the association between cannabis use and schizophrenia indicated that the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia would increase from 1990 onwards.The Keele paper investigates whether this has occurred in the UK by examining trends in the annual prevalence and incidence of schizophrenia and psychoses, as measured by diagnosed cases from 1996 to 2005. The study cohort comprised almost 600,000 patients each year, representing approximately 2.3% of the UK population, aged 16 to 44. Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. Explanations other than a genuine stability or decline were considered, but appeared less plausible. In conclusion, the study, by Dr Martin Frisher, Professor Ilana Crome, Orsolina Martino and Professor Peter Croft, did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005.Gee does this mean all those reports in the Daily Mail, The Standard And telegraph are false or at least overstated YES IT DOES!!!
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