Walker DD, Petros R, Bennett M, Tennison M, Monroe-DeVita M. Development of a motivational enhancement therapy cannabis-reduction intervention for young adults experiencing psychosis: A feasibility pilot study. Psychiatr Rehabil J. 2025;doi:10.1037/prj0000654
This pilot study aimed to adapt an existing motivational enhancement therapy (MET) intervention for young adults experiencing psychosis (YA-P) who regularly use cannabis and then evaluate the adapted intervention’s acceptability and feasibility. The original Teen Marijuana Check-Up was designed for people who did not see themselves as needing treatment. In the initial phase of this study, the adapted version, called the Cannabis Check-Up for Psychosis (CCU-P), was optimized through feedback from focus groups and a Stakeholder Advisory Board (SAB). Changes included personalized feedback on cannabis and rehospitalization risk, harm reduction strategies to reduce the risk of cannabis use disorder (CUD) and poorer psychosis outcomes, and one additional assessment item asking whether cannabis worsened psychosis symptoms. Before testing the intervention, SAB members suggested two minor revisions. They recommended updating the colors and formatting of the personalized feedback report to improve accessibility for people with red-green color blindness and rearranging two graphics to better match expected visual cues. The optimized intervention was then delivered through telehealth to a small national sample of young adults with psychosis. Feasibility was high, with strong initial interest, enrollment of 100% of the eligible invited participants, and a 92% completion rate. Participants came from nine states, reported no problems using telehealth, and were able to view and engage with their personalized feedback reports. Participants expressed high satisfaction with both the intervention and the study interventionist. Although fewer than half said completing surveys took too long, they also felt the personalized feedback made the process worthwhile. No intervention component was consistently viewed as unnecessary. While confidence in the ability to change did not improve significantly (p = .689), participants reported greater importance of reducing or stopping cannabis use (M change = 1.64, SD = 2.01, p = .022) and greater readiness to change (M change = 1.54, SD = 2.11, p = .031). All participants said they would recommend the CCU-P to others.