Smoking rates among the mentally ill are significantly higher than other groups in the United States

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --  Legacy®, the national non-profit foundation dedicated to helping Americans live longer, healthier lives, recently released a report titled:  A Hidden Epidemic: Tobacco Use and Mental Illness. The report is tenth in a series of publications that call attention to contemporary issues, programs and practices in tobacco control. The report finds that tobacco use is highly prevalent among people with mental illnesses. At the same time, there is limited access to and use of effective prevention and cessation resources as well as a lack of effective tobacco-cessation efforts in the mental health community to help people overcome their addictions to nicotine. In addition to examining prevalence of tobacco use among people with mental illnesses, the report also discusses the lack of effective tobacco-cessation efforts.

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According to the report, smoking rates are significantly higher for people with mental illnesses than for the general population. In fact, individuals who have psychiatric disorders smoke at rates almost twice as high as the general population. Key stats include:

• 60 percent of people with lifetime depression are either current or former smokers
• As many as 70 percent of people with bipolar disorder smoke
• Up to 88 percent of people with schizophrenia are current smokers.

"The striking prevalence of tobacco use by the mentally ill is simply tragic," says Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, president and CEO of Legacy. "It is a heartbreaking reality that individuals with serious mental illness die 25 years earlier than the general population – pointing out the glaring need to address tobacco addiction within the community."

Despite these sobering statistics, the report also found that tobacco control is not a priority within the mental health treatment community. Less than a quarter of outpatients with psychiatric illnesses receive counseling from their physicians aimed at smoking cessation, and in hospitals, only one percent of psychiatric inpatient smokers were assessed for smoking.

According to the report, smoking cessation is not a priority among mental health care systems. Playing a central role in the disparity: the lack of training in cessation techniques and strategies given to mental health care providers.  There is a strong belief among mental health providers that the following is true:

• Individuals with mental illnesses are not motivated to quit;
• Tobacco use is a form of self-medication and helps patients control their symptoms;
• Quitting smoking will exacerbate symptoms and lead to a relapse of the psychiatric disorder;
• Tobacco use is an individual right of patients;
• Use of cigarettes is an effective reward system in institutions and psychiatric hospitals.

"The lack of training and persistent beliefs of those mental health providers who treat people with mental illnesses is upsetting," says Dr. Healton. "People with mental illnesses are just as motivated to quit as the general population and they should be given that chance to do so.  The American Psychiatric Association guidelines recommend that psychiatrists assess their patients' smoking status and history, as well as advise their patients about cessation strategies. Clearly, this report finds that training programs and support networks for mental health patients need to be more formally established within the clinical setting."

In an effort to solve this problem, the report presents case studies that offer examples with sample resolutions, including:

• Training mental health care providers in evidence-based tobacco cessation strategies;
• Integrating evidence-based cessation strategies into mental health treatment plans;
• Enforcing smoke-free policies at psychiatric hospitals and clinics;
• Assessing smoking status of all people served in psychiatric inpatient and outpatient environments.

In addition to the key solutions presented by this dissemination report, Legacy is committed to conducting further research into helping this underserved community in tobacco cessation efforts. While extensive research exists on the effects of tobacco use in the general population, few studies focus on individuals with mental illnesses.

To read A Hidden Epidemic: Tobacco Use and Mental Illness visit: http://www.legacyforhealth.org/PDF/A_Hidden_Epidemic.pdf

Legacy® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the national public health organization helps Americans live longer, healthier lives. Legacy develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation's programs include truth®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as having contributed to significant declines in youth smoking; EX®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; and research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use. Legacy was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit http://www.legacyforhealth.org/.
 

SOURCE Legacy

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