The relation between depression, sleep and cannabis use in university students

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Psychology - Miscellaneous, grade: 2.1, University of Manchester, course: Psychology, language: English, abstract: Does the consumption of cannabis influence our sleep quality? The relationship between depression, sleep and cannabis use has been reported to have variable outcomes. The relationship between said variables has, however, to date not been analysed within a student sample, which has been the goal of this questionnaire-based study.

A total of 73 students (15 male, 58 female) at the University of Manchester completed a questionnaire that was used to analyse the relationship between depression, sleep and cannabis use. To test these variables, several questionnaires were employed: the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to test depression symptoms; the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to test sleep quality; the ¿Cannabis Use Disorder Identification Test - Revised¿ (CUDIT-R) to test problematic cannabis use; a ¿weekly joints¿ questionnaire to test cannabis use frequency and finally a ¿cannabis as a sleep aid¿ question to test whether students who used cannabis as a sleep aid had better or worse subjective sleep quality and to test whether they had more or fewer symptoms of depression when compared to non-users.

The study found a strong positive correlation between problematic cannabis use (CUDIT-R) and the number of joints consumed weekly, as well as a significant positive correlation between depression (HADS) and sleep quality (PSQI). It was also found that non-users had a better sleep quality and less severe symptoms of depression than cannabis users.