The effect of nicotine on schizophrenia

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is one of the most serious mental illnesses while it is one of the highest expenditures of the national health system. Furthermore, schizophrenia is indissolubly linked to smoking. Understanding the pathogenesis of the disease will give health workers the knowledge that they need in order to treat effectively this chronic disease that tortures thousands of people. Aim: The aim of this review study is to find out the connection between smoking and schizophrenia as well as the pathogenetic pathway that leads on to manifesting people of general population the schizophrenia disease. Methodology: A literature review was conducted in electronic sources. Studies in Greek and English were searched in the PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect databases. Results: The literature review has shown that people who suffer from schizophrenia use smoking of tobacco as a treatment in order to defeat the side effects of the drugs that used to cure the disease. In addition, smoking affects significantly the way that drugs act; that is why smokers who suffer from schizophrenia are not treated effectively and they need reassessment of the therapeutic plan in order to achieve the intended goal. Finally, smoking increases the risk of getting offspring with schizophrenia. Conclusions: The healthcare professional contribute to the healing process while they play their parts to prevent serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Therefore the updating of the general population about smoking and the reconsideration of the way that healthcare professional treat their patients will give us the opportunity to find the best way to heal schizophrenia while people who suffer from schizophrenia will get their lives back.