Cooccurring Psychiatric or Substance Use Disorders - Nicotine Dependence

Cooccurring Psychiatric or Substance Use Disorders

Nicotine dependence and smoking are two to three times more common in individuals with psychiatric and other substance use disorders than in the general population. Smoking-related ill-nesses are the primary cause of death among those in recovery from other substances. It is estimated that 55 to 90% of individu-als with psychiatric disorders smoke versus the 23% of the gen-eral population. The prevalence of smoking is especially high in patients with schizophrenia (70–90%), affective disorders (42– 70%) and alcohol dependence (60–90%) or other substance use disorders (70–95%).

There is no simple reason why so many psychiatric pa-tients smoke.