Knowledge, attitude, and perception of Pakistani anesthesiologists about medical usage of cannabis for pain

Introduction: Medical literature reflects acceptance of Cannabis as a medicinal drug. Pakistan ranks second amongst the countries using cannabis for recreational usage. However, medical use of Cannabis is not common. Cannabis is generally considered a recreational drug and acceptance of its medicinal use requires a cultural acceptance. Anecdotally, a few pain physicians are pre- scribing the very expensive imported formulations for cancer pain or other forms of chronic pain. We have devised a KAP (knowledge, attitude, practice) survey about the medicinal use of Cannabis, to find out potential barriers to its use, and to establish a base- line health-related behavior.Methodology: After ethics review committee approval, anesthesiologists working in centers that provide pain management services will be contacted through email and requested to fill an online KAP survey. This survey will contain questions relevant to the knowledge about; available preparations of Cannabis, legality of use in the country, indications and contra- indications, side effects, Attitude; willingness to use if available, barriers to use, and Practice; their experience of using medical Cannabis. Survey will be administered through Google forms. Selected participants will be sent a reminder after 10 days of the first email, and a second reminder after 20 days. Data will be analyzed by Statistical packages for social science version 17 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL). Mean and standard deviation will be computed for age and experience of anesthesiologist. Frequency and percentage will be computed for gender, knowledge, attitude and perception of Pakistani anesthesiologists about medical usage of cannabis. Chi- square test or Fisher exact test will be used at p ≤ 0.5 level of significance