Development of a Cannabis Assessment Tool (CAT-1) to measure current and lifetime marijuana use among older Veterans

Abstract

Objective: To develop a tool to assess current (past 30 days) and lifetime marijuana use in older Veterans.

Setting: US Veteran's Affairs Healthcare System.

Participants: 704 older Veterans were screened, 339 completed the initial survey, 100 completed the follow-up.

Primary outcome measure: Pearson's correlation coefficient to assess strength of association between initial and follow-up survey on measures of current and lifetime marijuana use.

Results: Both a 'gram-month' measure of marijuana smoked in the past 30 days (r=0.83) and a frequency-based measure assessing total number of times smoked in the past 30 days were reliable (r=0.89). Both a simple categorical measure of lifetime use (agreement=85%) and a continuous measure of lifetime use (r=0.82) were reliable.

Conclusions: The Cannabis Assessment Tool offers a reliable assessment of past 30 days and lifetime assessments of smoking cannabis in older adults.

Keywords: Cannabis; Marijuana; Veterans health administration; smoking.