Smoking cessation advice for people with serious mental illness

Abstract

Background: People with a serious mental illness are more likely to smoke more and to be more dependent smokers than the general population. This may be due to a wide range of factors that could include a common aetiology to both smoking and the illness, self medication, smoking to alleviate adverse effects of medications, boredom in the existing environment, or a combination of these factors. It is important to undertake this review to facilitate improvements in both the health and safety of people with serious mental illness who smoke, and to reduce the overall burden of costs (both financial and health) to the smoker and, eventually, to the taxpayer.

Objectives To review the effects of smoking cessation advice for people with serious mental illness.

Search methods: We searched the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group Specialized Trials Register up to 2 April 2015, which is based on regular searches of CENTRAL, BIOSIS, PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and trial registries. We also undertook unsystematic searches of a sample of the component databases (BNI, CINHAL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO), up to 2 April 2015, and searched references of all identified studies.

Selection criteria: We planned to include all randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that focussed on smoking cessation advice versus standard care or comparing smoking cessation advice with other more focussed methods of delivering care or information.

Data collection and analysis: The review authors (PK, AC, and DB) independently screened search results but did not identify any trials that fulfilled the inclusion criteria of this review.

Main results: We did not identify any RCTs that evaluated advice regarding smoking cessation for people with serious mental illness. The excluded studies illustrate that randomisation of packages of care relevant to smokers with serious mental illness is possible.

Authors' conclusions: People with serious mental illness are more likely to smoke than the general population. Yet we could not find any high quality evidence to guide the smoking cessation advice healthcare professionals pass onto service users. This is an area where trials are possible and needed.