Serious mental illness and smoking cessation

Smoking rates among individuals with severe mental illness are significantly higher than in the general population. Contrary to common perception, individuals with severe mental illness have been shown to be motivated to quit smoking. This paper discusses and synthesises literature on smoking among individuals with severe mental illness and contributes to the debate about the significant role mental health professionals can play in targeting the effective cessation therapies towards smokers with severe mental illness. Severe mental illnesses include schizophrenia, paranoid and other psychotic disorders, psychotic depression, bipolar affective disorder, major depression.

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in British Journal of Mental Health Nursing, copyright © 2018 MA Healthcare, after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.12968/bjmh.2018.7.1.39