Cigarette smoking among psychiatric out-patients

Steve Brown

doi:10.1192/pb.15.7.413

Abstract

The dangers of cigarette smoking are well recognised, and a number of public health measures designed to reduce the level of smoking have been introduced over the past 20 years. These measures have been fairly successful, and there has been a steady decline in the prevalence of cigarette smoking in the UK over the period 1972–1988 (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, 1990). A number of studies have shown a higher prevalence of cigarette smoking among psychiatric patients (Hughes et al, 1986); however, the majority of these have been of highly selected populations, or have failed to control for factors such as age, sex, socioeconomic status and alcohol abuse, all of which are known to affect the prevalence of smoking. This study compared the prevalence of cigarette smoking among a heterogeneous group of psychiatric out-patients with that of the general population with control for these confounding variables.

Highlights

Two hundred consecutive attenders at a general adult psychiatric out-patient clinic at a district gen eral hospital were asked to complete a questionnaire about their smoking habits
Further questions enquired into the smoking history, demographic details and attitudes to smoking, x2 analysis was used to com pare the responses of the patient group with the results from the 1988 General Household Survey (Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, 1990)
The prevalence of cigarette smoking among the psychiatric patients was about one and a half times that of the general public, both among the men (50% v. 33% x2= 8-2, d.f.= l, P

Summary

Introduction

Two hundred consecutive attenders at a general adult psychiatric out-patient clinic at a district gen eral hospital were asked to complete a questionnaire about their smoking habits. The questionnaire was a copy of that used in the 1988 General Household Survey, and was self-administered, except in the case of 11 patients who were illiterate and were helped by the reception staff. Cigarette smokers were identified as those who answered yes to the question: "Do you smoke cigarettes now?".

Results

Conclusion