Exploring Medically Perceived Benefits, Use and Interest in Psychedelics and Cannabinoids (EMPOWER)

August 11, 2022 updated by: Empower Research Inc

EMPOWER Study: Exploring Medically Perceived Benefits, Use and Interest in Psychedelics and Cannabinoids: Observational Study With First Responders and Military Personnel Examining Previous Use Experience and Interest in Participating in Future Research Studies

The primary objective of this study is to collect insights from first responders and military personnel on their need for, use of, and interest in physical and/or mental health medical marijuana or psychedelic-assisted therapy programs. These preliminary data will help to inform and guide the development of a larger patient-oriented study and the design of a clinical program geared towards enhancing therapy treatments for first responders and military personnel.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Members of first response teams including police, firefighters, paramedics, and military personnel in Canada, the United States, Oceana, and Europe will be asked to participate. The majority of these teams are unionized, consisting of municipal, provincial and federally organized unions throughout Canada, United States, Oceana and Europe.

Whenever possible, the research team will provide an invitation to its members via union representatives. These unions are a trusted source for first responders and military personnel as they are intended to have the best interests of these first responders in mind. The union representatives possess the contact information of the first responders and military personnel. The unions routinely circulate e-mails to members that include information relevant for members such as upcoming events, important meetings, team activities on and off-duty, and opportunities to participate in research.

Emails with the link to the survey will be circulated to members approximately every month for 3 months, or until at least 1000 participants have responded. The link to the survey may also be shared through personal connections among first responders and/or word of mouth.

Participants will be sent a link to open an anonymous survey which they can complete at their location and time of choosing. Once the survey link has been accessed by a potential participant, background information will be provided regarding the project that includes an informed consent statement. Participants may leave the survey at any time should they wish to discontinue.

The survey will be distributed to first responders and military personnel using an online questionnaire. This survey will contain questions about basic demographics, history of mental health conditions, satisfaction with current life status, past use of cannabis and other psychedelic substances, and interest and potential barriers in trying psychedelic or medical marijuana-assisted physical or mental health therapy in a research or clinical context. The Brief Inventory of Psychosocial Functioning (13) and a subset of questions from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Quick Screen (14) have been integrated into the survey to enhance reliability and validity of results.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. Once the survey has been submitted, participants will have the option to click a link to enter their email address using a separate collection form, if they would like to be contacted for future research opportunities.

The list of email addresses will not be linked to the survey results.

Data will be analyzed from all completed (fully or partially) and submitted surveys. Every question will contain a "Prefer Not to Say" option if a response is mandatory.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

102

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Canada
    • British Columbia
      • Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, V3V 0C6
        • Centre for Neurology Studies

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

19 years to 85 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Approximately 10,000 first responders and/or military personnel will be asked to participate in the survey.

Assuming a 20-30% response rate, the investigators expect approximately 2500 individual responses.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adult (19+) first responders and military personnel in Canada, USA, Oceana and Europe -
  • Not restricted by restricted by sex, gender, or diagnoses.
  • Respondents must be able to read and write in English to participate.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Individuals who are not first responders, military personnel, or an aligned profession
  • Individuals under the age of 19
  • Those who are not able to read and write in English

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Intervention / Treatment
North American First Responders
Spread directly to union representatives for email and messaging to those interested in taking the survey
Drug: Cannabis
Recreational Cannabis
Other Names:
  • Recreational Cannabis
Oceana and European first responders
First responder unions and groups that are located outside of North America - particularly Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, other commonwealth nations.
Drug: Cannabis
Recreational Cannabis
Other Names:
  • Recreational Cannabis

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Collect Insights from First Responders
Time Frame: 8 months
The primary objective of this study is to collect insights from first responders and military personnel on their need for, use of, and interest in physical and/or mental health medical marijuana or psychedelic-assisted therapy programs. These preliminary data will help to inform and guide the development of a larger patient-oriented study and the design of a clinical program geared towards enhancing therapy treatments for first responders and military personnel.
8 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Empower Research Inc

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

June 4, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 4, 2022

Study Completion (Actual)

February 15, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

July 4, 2021

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 7, 2021

First Posted (Actual)

July 16, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 12, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 11, 2022

Last Verified

August 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • EMP-SURVEY-001

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

Potentially available for use in planning research with these groups

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

Yes

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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