Graph by Steve Anderson People with psychiatric disorders are almost twice as likely to smoke as others, says Karen Lasser '90, M.D., a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The emotionally distressed also smoke more per day. But that percentage rises with the number of psychiatric problems, reaching 30 percent for those with multiple diagnoses. The study used the standard definition of mental illness adopted by most psychiatrists in the United States, which includes syndromes such as major depression, panic disorder, schizophrenia, drug or alcohol abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, and other psychological disorders. This definition is broad enough to embrace nearly half the U.S. population on a lifetime basis, and to diagnose mental illness in 28 percent of the population within the past month.
Tobacco use can, for example, influence the impact of medication taken for psychiatric syndromes.
You have to take higher doses, and that may mean more side effects. The researchers also question the presumption that mental illness causes smoking. Recent studies show that smoking may precede mental illness. One bright spot was a surprising finding about quit rates, which Lasser and her five coauthors expected to be lower among the mentally ill. Caregivers see that cigarettes are one thing that makes people who are so ill feel better.