Smoking and mental health - NCSCT

Smoking among people with mental disorders 2
60
Smoking prevalence (%)
45
30
15
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Year
Patients with a longstanding mental health condition
Patients with no longstanding mental health condition
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Fig 2.1 Changes in smoking prevalence between 1993 and 2010 in
participants with or without longstanding mental health conditions (with
95% confidence intervals (CIs); data from the Health Survey for England
(HSE)).
were smokers. Of the 11% of adults in England estimated by APMS to have
consulted a GP in the past year for a mental, nervous or emotional complaint,
33% were smokers, of the 3% of adults who had received counselling for a
mental, nervous or emotional complaint at the time of the survey, 35% were
smokers, and of the 0.7% of adults who had made one or more suicide attempts
in the last year, 57% were smokers.
2.3.3 THIN
Data from the THIN primary care database add further confirmation of the high
prevalence of smoking among those with diagnosed mental disorders and those
taking psychoactive medications (Table 2.4). Although there is inevitable
inconsistency between the proportions in disease-specific diagnostic groups and
those using related medications (eg those with diagnosed depression and those
taking antidepressants), which probably reflects both a failure to regularly update
diagnostic recording and the use of psychoactive drugs for other indications (see
section 2.2.3), smoking prevalence in all the groups in Table 2.3 is substantially
and statistically significantly higher than in the population without these
morbidities or prescription drug use.
© Royal College of Physicians 2013 23