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"Research suggests that people may be using cannabis as an exit drug to reduce use of substances that are potentially more harmful, such as opioid pain medication," said the study's lead investigator Zach Walsh, associate professor of psychology at UBC's Okanagan campus. This comprehensive review of research on medical cannabis use and mental health also found some evidence that cannabis may help with symptoms of depression, PTSD and social anxiety. However, the review concluded that cannabis use might not be recommended for conditions such as bipolar disorder and psychosis. "In reviewing the limited evidence on medical cannabis, it appears that patients and others who have advocated for cannabis as a tool for harm reduction and mental health have some valid points," said Walsh. Walsh and his team reviewed all studies of medical cannabis and mental health, as well as reviews on non-medical cannabis use -- making the review one of the most comprehensi...

The randomized clinical trial is the largest to date to examine an evidence-based treatment for active-duty military service members, with 268 participants from the U.S. Army's Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Findings will be published Nov. 23 in  JAMA Psychiatry . The study analyzed the effectiveness of six weeks of Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and found that nearly half the participants in one-on-one therapy improved so much they no longer carried a PTSD diagnosis. Almost 40 percent of the participants in group sessions also dropped their PTSD diagnoses after six weeks. "For some of the participants, you can see a change just by looking at them -- as though they have been unburdened," said Patricia Resick, Ph.D., the study's lead author, who developed CPT in the 1980s for victims of rape and other interpersonal trauma and is now a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine. "Some people think you have t...

That's one of the findings from a review of all the research on the links between social networking and depression by David Baker and Dr Guillermo Perez Algorta from Lancaster University. They examined studies from 14 countries with 35,000 participants aged between 15 and 88. There are among 1.8 billion people on online social networking sites worldwide, with Facebook alone having more than 1 billion active users. Concerns over the effect on mental health led the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2011 to define "Facebook depression" as a "depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression." The Lancaster University review of existing research found that the relationship between online social networking and depression may be very complex and associated with factors like age and gender. In cases where there is a significant associa...