CapOpus is the name of a randomized controlled trial

Randomized controlled trial

A randomized controlled trial is a type of scientific experiment - a form of clinical trial - most commonly used in testing the safety and efficacy or effectiveness of healthcare services or health technologies A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a type of scientific experiment - a form of...

 (RCT) running in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 at Psychiatric Center Bispebjerg (part of Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri

Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri

Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri is a psychiatric hospital with centers spread all around the capital region of Denmark, mainly consisting of Copenhagen, northern Zealand, and Bornholm....

) and physically located at Bispebjerg Hospital

Bispebjerg Hospital

Bispebjerg Hospital is one of the hospitals in the Capital Region of Denmark. Along with a number of other hospitals and the University of Copenhagen , Bispebjerg Hospital forms part of the Copenhagen University Hospital....

 in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. It is an intervention

Health intervention

A health intervention is an effort to promote good health behaviour such as physical exercise or to prevent bad health behaviours, e.g. promoting tobacco smoking cessation or discouraging the use of illicit drugs or excessive drinking....

 aimed at reducing cannabis

Cannabis

Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

 consumption in young persons with comorbid severe mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

 such as schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

 or schizotypal personality disorder

Schizotypal personality disorder

Schizotypal personality disorder, or simply schizotypal disorder, is a personality disorder that is characterized by a need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs.-Genetic:...

, and cannabis dependency. It is run by professor, psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 Merete Nordentoft, MD

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

, PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

.

The aim of the RCT is to compare an approach using motivational interviewing

Motivational interviewing

Motivational interviewing refers to a counseling approach in part developed by clinical psychologists Professor William R Miller, Ph.D. and Professor Stephen Rollnick, Ph.D. The concept of motivational interviewing evolved from experience in the treatment of problem drinkers, and was first...

, cognitive behaviour therapy, and the stages of change

Transtheoretical Model

The Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change assesses an individual's readiness to act on a new healthier behavior, and provides strategies, or processes of change to guide the individual through the stages of change to action and maintenance....

 model compared with standard treatment. Among the trial's funders are the Lundbeck

Lundbeck

H. Lundbeck A/S is a Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research and development, production, marketing, and sale of drugs for the treatment of disorders in the central nervous system , including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease,...

 foundation, the Municipality of Copenhagen, and Sygekassernes Helsefond.

The primary outcome of the trial is reduction in number of days using cannabis, as measured by the timeline followback instrument. As secondary outcomes, the trial measures level of psychopathology

Psychopathology

Psychopathology is the study of mental illness, mental distress, and abnormal/maladaptive behavior. The term is most commonly used within psychiatry where pathology refers to disease processes...

 in terms of positive and negative symptoms with the PANSS

PANSS

The PANSS or the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale is a medical scale used for measuring symptom severity of patients with schizophrenia. It was published in 1987 by Stanley Kay, Lewis Opler, and Abraham Fiszbein...

 instrument; cognitive function using a set of validated tests; and quality of life and related life-areas measured with the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life

MANSA

MANSA is a scale used to assess quality of life. Its name is short for Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life. It was developed by Priebe et al. in 1999. The creators of the scale found the results of the scale to be comparable to the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile.The MANSA consists of...

 instrument and the World Health Organisation's Disability Assessment Schedule.

The presence of mental illness and cannabis dependency, abuse, or harmful use is established using the SCAN

SCAN

SCAN or Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry is a set of tools created by WHO aimed at diagnosing and measuring mental illness that may occur in adult life. It is not constructed explicitly for use with either ICD-10 or DSM-IV but can be used for both systems...

 interview's chapters 11 and 12.

The trial is, along with the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 MIDAS Trial

MIDAS Trial

The MIDAS Trial is a randomized controlled trial in Manchester, England using Motivational Interventions for Drugs & Alcohol misuse in Schizophrenia...

, among the only trials aimed at this particular group of comorbid substance abusers with schizophrenia.