People with psychiatric disorders consume 44.3% of all cigarettes smoked in this country

(Science Update from NIMH - February 18, 2009)

Expert Panel Addresses High Rates of Smoking in People with Psychiatric Disorders

Numerous biological, psychological, and social factors are likely to play a role in the high rates of smoking in people with psychiatric disorders, according to the report of an expert panel convened by the National Institute of Mental Health. The report ... identifies research needed to clarify these factors and their interactions, and to improve treatment aimed at reducing the rates of illness and mortality from smoking in this population.

... 41 percent of people with a psychiatric disorder smoke, about twice the rate (22.5 percent) seen in those without psychiatric diagnoses. People with psychiatric disorders consume 44.3 percent of all cigarettes smoked in this country. The high rate of smoking is an important factor in increased rates of physical illness and mortality in this group.

Despite the high smoking rates, studies of outpatient and hospital care of psychiatric patients reported that less than a quarter of outpatients with psychiatric diagnoses received counseling from their physicians aimed at smoking cessation, and in hospitals, only 1 percent of psychiatric inpatient smokers were assessed for smoking; none of the treatment plans for these patients addressed tobacco use...

• Research suggests that the relationship between depression and smoking may be bidirectional: depression increases the risk of smoking, and chronic smoking increases a person's susceptibility to depression. The same genes may contribute to both.
  
• As many as 70 to 85 percent of people with schizophrenia use tobacco...

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