Do anxiety symptoms and coping motives serially mediate the association between psychotic-like experiences and cannabis-related problems in undergraduate recent cannabis users?

Addict Behav. 2023 Dec 15;151:107937. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2023.107937. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTMany Canadian emerging adults (ages 18-25 years) use cannabis, with 60 % of past-three-month users experiencing one or more cannabis-related problems (i.e., adverse consequences of use). While psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and cannabis problems overlap, little is known about the mechanisms explaining this link. One hypothesis is that PLEs are distressing and give rise to anxiety, with which emerging adults attempt to cope through increased cannabis use, in turn increasing their risk for cannabis-related problems. We tested a chained-mediational model to determine if anxiety and coping-with-anxiety motives for cannabis use sequentially mediated the link between PLEs and cannabis problems in emerging adult undergraduates; a conditional process model tested for moderation by sex. Emerging adult cannabis users (N = 413; mean [SD] age = 19.1 [1.5] years; 71.9 % female) from five Canadian universities provided cross-sectional, self-report survey data in fall 2021. Validated measures of PLEs, anxiety, cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives, and cannabis-related problems were administered. Path analyses supported the hypothesized chained mediational indirect effect (b = 0.027, 95 % bootstrap CI [0.012, 0.050]). No direct effect was found (p =.698), suggesting that the PLEs-to-cannabis problems association is fully explained by anxiety and cannabis coping-with-anxiety motives. Inco...
Source: Addictive Behaviors - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: research