Evidence Base for Helping Your Patients Quit Tobacco
- What’s the problem?
- While smoking prevalence nationwide is less than 13%, approximately 20% of American adults with mental health conditions smoke.
- Tobacco smoke can interfere with the medicines prescribed for other behavioral health issues. For more, click here.
- More behavioral health patients will die from tobacco use than from their behavioral health issues – and they’ll die from tobacco about 5 years sooner. For more, click here.
- It’s time to take action. To see how, click here.
- Treating tobacco use with other behavioral health issues works:
- A 2025 study in JAMA Psychiatry found that quitting smoking is linked to better substance use disorder (SUD) recovery outcomes; smoking cessation could be a tool for assisting the recovery process among the millions of US adults with a current SUD. For more, click here.
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- A meta-analysis of 19 studies found that providing smoking cessation interventions during addictions treatment was associated with a 25% greater likelihood of long-term abstinence from alcohol and illicit drugs. To read more in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, click here.
- A meta-analysis found that compared to those who did not quit, those who did experienced significant improvements in depression and anxiety and significant reductions in stress. To read more in the British Medical Journal, click here.
- Patients want your help.
- A meta-analysis in the journal Addiction found people with mental illness are motivated to quit smoking. In fact, more than half of people with behavioral-health diagnoses contemplated quitting within the last six months. To read more in Addiction, click here.
- Those with serious mental illness are most likely to refill quit-smoking medications. For more, click here.
- Your peers are already doing it.
- “I am personally pleased by small things that our program has accomplished and the positive feedback I get from the patients directly, such as getting a Christmas card from a former patient that says, “not drinking and not smoking.”- Theresa Taylor, Clinic Supervisor, Ministry Health Care, Waupaca Outpatient AODA/Mental Health Treatment Clinic
- Nearly half of substance abuse treatment facilities offer counseling or medication to help clients quit tobacco use. For more, click here.
- “I challenge all deliveries of care: CSPs, residential, private psychotherapy, and those programs who treat the most vulnerable, who may want to focus on other issues, to think about how they can address tobacco and to adopt a zero-tolerance policy.” ~William Fry, Director, Columbia St. Mary’s Behavioral Health
Sources: McClave et al., AJPH, 2010 and *Weinberger, et. al., ACER, 2018.
Tobacco and Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia patients show cognitive improvements after smoking cessation. For more, click here.
- Smoking cessation in patients with schizophrenia has many long-term positive physiological effects. For more, click here.
- Tobacco use among individuals with schizophrenia: What role has the tobacco industry played? For more, click here.
- Maintenance Treatment With Varenicline for Smoking Cessation in Patients With Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial (JAMA). For more, click here.
Tobacco and Other Behavioral Health Diagnoses
- Bipolar: An Online Survey of Tobacco Use, Intentions to Quit, and Cessation Strategies Among People Living with Bipolar Disorder. For more, click here.
- SMI: Efficacy and tolerability of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation in adults with serious mental illness: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. For more, click here.
- Mental illness:
- Nicotine has mood-altering effects that can temporarily mask the negative symptoms of mental illness, putting people with mental illness at higher risk for cigarette use and nicotine addiction. For more, click here.
- Addiction: The Scandal of Smoking and Mental Illness. For more, click here.
- Depression:
- How can psychiatrists be more effective? For more, click here.
- Effect of smoking cessation on mental health functioning. For more, click here.
Tobacco & Cannabis
Cannabis use reduces the chances someone will try to quit smoking, according to findings published by UW-CTRI researchers in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. For more, click here.
Policy Research
- Tobacco-free policy outcomes for an inpatient substance-abuse treatment center. For more, click here.
- Smokers with behavioral health comorbidity should be designated a tobacco use disparity group. For more, click here.
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