Critical Factors That Influence Nurses' Knowledge, Perceptions and Attitudes of Medical Cannabis Usage by Patients

Background: From the mid-19th century to the 1930s, medical cannabis was used for the treatment of pain and many other medical conditions. In the 1970s, the United States classified medical marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, which made it an illegal substance. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have legalized medical cannabis at the state level in the United States. This state legalization has increased the number of patients taking medical cannabis. Nurses should become knowledgeable on the endocannabis system in order to educate this growing population of patient users.

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory study was to explore the critical factors that influence nurses’ knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of medical cannabis usage by patients.

Philosophical Underpinnings: The study was grounded by constructivism, symbolic interactionism, and pragmatism.

Methods: This research study was based on Strauss and Corbin’s (1990, 1998) grounded theory approach. Phase 1 included individual nurses with 1 year or more of nursing experience from different nursing specialties. The nurses were interviewed in a semi-structured fashion with open-ended questions. Data analysis was completed with constant comparison of the data to develop concepts. The conceptual categories, subcategory, and theory were developed in Phase I and then were verified with the focus group in Phase II.

Results: The categories that emerged from the data—personal knowing, lacking education, advocating, stigmatizing and regulating with the subcategory of lacking uniformity all contributed to the critical factors that influence nurses’ knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of medical cannabis usage by patients. The critical analysis of these categories and the subcategory led to the social process of restructuring. Restructuring emerged as what grounds the social context in United States

process of critical factors that influence nurses’ knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of medical cannabis usage by patients.

Conclusions: The theoretical framework constructed in this study can be useful to inform nursing education, practice, research, health and public policy. This study provides insights that could demonstrate usefulness in nursing management of patients using medical cannabis in the