Methodology v0.1 / 26 April 2026

Phenologue: a structured PRO methodology for medical cannabis

Phenologue captures session-level outcomes against cultivar chemotypes, not strain names. Every session is a paired pre/post record tied to a specific batch. The methodology is openly licensed (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the data is patient-owned by default. Pen and paper works fine; the platform automates the bookkeeping.

Read the full methodology document on GitHub. The citations below mirror §11 of that document — every analytical claim sits on top of peer-reviewed work.

References and prior art

11.1 Patient-reported outcome instruments

  1. WHO (1996). WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF). World Health Organization. DOI: www.who.int/tools/whoqol/whoqol-bref

    General health PROs. Anchor for the 0–10 VAS framing.

  2. Kessler RC, Adler L, Ames M, et al. (2005). The World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1). Psychological Medicine35(2):245-256. PMID: 15841682. DOI: doi.org/10.1017/s0033291704002892

    ASRS-v1.1 — anchor for ADHD self-report items.

  3. Cleeland CS, Ryan KM (1994). Pain assessment: global use of the Brief Pain Inventory. Annals, Academy of Medicine, Singapore23(2):129-138. PMID: 8080219. DOI: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8080219/

    Brief Pain Inventory — anchor for pain items.

  4. Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JBW, Löwe B (2006). A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine166(10):1092-1097. PMID: 16717171. DOI: doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092

    GAD-7 — anchor for anxiety items; the primary anxiety PROM in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry.

  5. Buysse DJ, Reynolds CF 3rd, Monk TH, Berman SR, Kupfer DJ (1989). The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Research28(2):193-213. PMID: 2748771. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/0165-1781(89)90047-4

    Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index — anchor for sleep items.

  6. Herdman M, Gudex C, Lloyd A, et al. (2011). Development and preliminary testing of the new five-level version of EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L). Quality of Life Research20(10):1727-1736. PMID: 21479777. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/s11136-011-9903-x

    EQ-5D-5L — the standard NICE-recognised UK HRQoL instrument.

  7. Snyder E, Cai B, DeMuro C, Morrison MF, Ball W (2018). A new single-item Sleep Quality Scale: results of psychometric evaluation in patients with chronic primary insomnia and depression. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine14(11):1849-1857. PMID: 30373682. DOI: doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.7478

    Single-Item Sleep Quality Scale (SQS) — as used by UK MCR.

11.2 Cannabis chemovar science (peer-reviewed, PubMed-indexed)

  1. Sawler J, Stout JM, Gardner KM, Hudson D, Vidmar J, Butler L, Page JE, Myles S (2015). The Genetic Structure of Marijuana and Hemp. PLoS ONE10(8):e0133292. PMID: 26308334. DOI: doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133292

    Direct evidence that "marijuana strain names often do not reflect a meaningful genetic identity" — the foundational reference for moving away from strain-name marketing labels.

  2. Hazekamp A, Fischedick JT (2012). Cannabis — from cultivar to chemovar. Drug Testing and Analysis4(7-8):660-667. PMID: 22362625. DOI: doi.org/10.1002/dta.407

    The canonical chemovar paper. Establishes PCA-based chemovar classification across 700+ cultivars.

  3. Russo EB (2011). Taming THC: potential cannabis synergy and phytocannabinoid-terpenoid entourage effects. British Journal of Pharmacology163(7):1344-1364. PMID: 21749363. DOI: doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-5381.2011.01238.x

    Foundational reference for the entourage effect — why terpenes matter, not just cannabinoids.

  4. Booth JK, Page JE, Bohlmann J (2017). Terpene synthases from Cannabis sativa. PLoS ONE12(3):e0173911. PMID: 28355238. DOI: doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173911

    Identifies the 9 terpene synthases responsible for myrcene, ocimene, limonene, α-pinene, β-caryophyllene and α-humulene biosynthesis. Foundational chemistry for the chemotype model.

  5. Booth JK, Yuen MMS, Jancsik S, Madilao LL, Page JE, Bohlmann J (2020). Terpene Synthases and Terpene Variation in Cannabis sativa. Plant Physiology184(1):130-147. PMID: 32591428. DOI: doi.org/10.1104/pp.20.00593

    Documents large terpene variation both within and between sets of plants labelled as the same cultivar — the empirical basis for batch-level fidelity rather than cultivar-level pooling.

  6. Cerrato A, Citti C, Cannazza G, Capriotti AL, Cavaliere C, Grassi G, Marini F, Montone CM, Paris R, Piovesana S, Laganà A (2021). Phytocannabinomics: Untargeted metabolomics as a tool for cannabis chemovar differentiation. Talanta230:122313. PMID: 33934778. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2021.122313

    Demonstrates that traditional 5-chemotype classification (THC/CBD/CBG ratios) is insufficient and that minor phytocannabinoids define meaningful subgroups.

  7. Oswald IWH, Ojeda MA, Pobanz RJ, Koby KA, Buchanan AJ, Del Rosso J, Guzman MA, Martin TJ (2021). Identification of a New Family of Prenylated Volatile Sulfur Compounds in Cannabis Revealed by Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography. ACS Omega6(47):31667-31676. PMID: 34869990. DOI: doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c04196

    Establishes that the "skunk" cannabis aroma is caused by volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs), specifically 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol — not terpenes. Reason the terpene_descriptor_map does NOT map "skunk" to a terpene; it is flagged as unmapped pending VSC-class support in v0.2.

  8. Herwig N, Utgenannt S, Nickl F, Möbius P, Nowak L, Schulz O, Fischer M (2024). Classification of Cannabis Strains Based on their Chemical Fingerprint — A Broad Analysis of Chemovars in the German Market. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research10(3):409-419. PMID: 39137353. DOI: doi.org/10.1089/can.2024.0127

    140 medicinal cannabis flowers from the German market analysed by GC-MS. Establishes a 6-cluster terpene-profile classification with no statistical correlation between terpene profile and indica/sativa/hybrid genetic label. The most directly relevant peer-reviewed precedent for Phenologue's chemotype dimensions.

11.3 Methodological neighbours — UK observational cannabis cohorts

  1. Rifkin-Zybutz R, Erridge S, Holvey C, Coomber R, Gaffney J, Lawn W, et al. (2023). Clinical outcome data of anxiety patients treated with cannabis-based medicinal products in the United Kingdom: a cohort study from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. Psychopharmacology (Berl)240(8):1735-1745. PMID: 37314478. DOI: doi.org/10.1007/s00213-023-06399-3

    302 GAD patients tracked with GAD-7, SQS, EQ-5D-5L at 1, 3, 6 months. Imperial College London / Sapphire Medical Clinics.

  2. Wang C, Erridge S, Holvey C, Coomber R, Usmani A, Sajad M, et al. (2023). Assessment of clinical outcomes in patients with fibromyalgia: Analysis from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. Brain and Behavior13(7):e3072. PMID: 37199833. DOI: doi.org/10.1002/brb3.3072

    306 fibromyalgia patients, 1/3/6/12 months, the same PROM toolkit.

  3. Li A, Erridge S, Holvey C, Coomber R, Barros D, Bhoskar U, et al. (2024). UK Medical Cannabis Registry: a case series analyzing clinical outcomes of medical cannabis therapy for generalized anxiety disorder patients. International Clinical Psychopharmacology39(6):350-360. PMID: 38299624. DOI: doi.org/10.1097/YIC.0000000000000536

    120 GAD patients tracked at 12 months; instrument set is GAD-7 + SQS + EQ-5D-5L.

11.4 Non-PubMed but relevant prior art

  1. Sakal et al., Schlag A (2022). Drug Science Project Twenty21. Drug Science, Policy and Law. DOI: drugscience.org.uk/project-twenty21/

    UK observational medical cannabis study; not PubMed-indexed.

  2. Schwabe AL, McGlaughlin ME (2019). Genetic tools weed out misconceptions of strain reliability in Cannabis sativa. Journal of Cannabis Research. DOI: doi.org/10.1186/s42238-019-0001-1

    Supports the strain-name unreliability claim; not PubMed-indexed at time of writing.

  3. MyMD / Releaf / Sapphire (2024). Patient feedback structures (commercial, closed) DOI: sapphireclinics.com/

    Commercial, closed patient feedback platforms — referenced as the closed-source counterpoint to Phenologue.

Versioning and governance

The methodology is published as a versioned open document under CC BY-SA 4.0. Patch versions (0.1.x) are clarifications, typo fixes, and additions to the controlled vocabulary. Minor versions (0.x) add scales, fields, and analysis approaches and remain backward-compatible. Major versions are breaking changes to the data structure with an explicit migration path.

Substantive changes follow a public RFC process with a two-week minimum comment period. Every session record, every report, and every export is stamped with the methodology version it was produced against; aggregate analyses report the version distribution of their underlying sessions so that methodology drift never corrupts longitudinal comparisons.

Community input is welcomed. RFCs and clarification requests live at github.com/phenologue/phenologue/issues.

Methodology v0.1 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · authored by Brendon Pevreall · last revised 26 April 2026 · canonical source on GitHub.