Cigarette smoking and schizophrenia: An unmet public health burden

Gaurav Chaudhari and Mariyah Hussain

Cigarette smoking and schizophrenia: An unmet public health burden

Gaurav Chaudhari and Mariyah Hussain

Municipal Medical College, India

: J Trauma Stress Disor Treat

Abstract

Despite some success in combating cigarette smoking in the general population, there has been little effort toward decreasingthe rates of cigarette smoking in people with schizophrenia and other chronic mental illnesses. In addition to the financial burden of living on a limited fixed income, these people with mental illness also contribute to the added tax burden in a society for support of their medical care for cigarette smoking related medical sequelae. These medical sequelae are identified as the major reason for the shorter life span of schizophrenic patients. Despite there being literature to support that people with chronic mental illness can tolerate quit attempts and can have moderate short term success, there is still a reluctance to treat cigarette addiction aggressively in this patient population. Caregivers in the field of mental health need to be educated to aggressively address this public health dilemma.