Cannabis and apps with Marleen Olthof and Matthijs Blankers

In this episode, Rob Calder talks to Marleen Olthof and Dr Matthijs Blankers about their research into ICan - a digital health app designed to reduce cannabis use. They initially talk about the potential of using apps to improve health and support people who use drugs before also discussing how apps can improve access to support.

“It’s a much smaller step to sign up for a digital intervention than to enter treatment”- Marleen Olthof

They discuss how complicated it can be to 'blind' people to a particular condition when researching digital apps and the techniques they used to run a single-blind randomised controlled trial. They then discuss the implications of their findings.

Matthijs discusses pre-registration and how this helped the team to prepare; and, how open science principles benefit researchers throughout the research cycle.

Original article: A guided digital intervention to reduce cannabis use: The ICan randomized controlled trial by Marleen Olthof and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)

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