Smoking Cessation Program Tailored to Patients With SMI Reduces Smoking, Improves Health

A smoking cessation intervention tailored to people with severe mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia can lead to reduced smoking and improved physical health in the short term, reports astudy published inLancet Psychiatry.Compared with patients with SMI who received standard smoking cessation treatment, patients who received the tailored intervention that combined behavioral and pharmacological therapy were more than twice as likely to have successfully quit smoking at six months. These improvements, however, were maintained by only 15% of the patients at the 12-month mark.“The results of the SCIMITAR+ [Smoking Cessation Intervention for Severe Mental Illness] trial will be helpful in informing clinical practice, since we have shown that quitting can be achieved for people who use mental health services just as it can for the general population of smokers,” wrote Simon Gilbody, D.Phil., of the University of York and colleagues. “Clinicians should therefore ask all of their patients about smoking status and offer referrals to effective smoking cessation services.”The study included 526 adults with SMI (which included schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder) who smoked at least five cigarettes a day. All study participants expressed an interest in reducing or quitting smoking. The participants were randomly assigned to receive usual care (access to smoking cessation medications and a telephone helpline) or a tailored cessation intervention fo...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bipolar disorder cigarettes Lancet Psychiatry schizophrenia serious mental illness Simon Gilbody SMI smoking cessation Source Type: research