Low prevalence of smoking among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Tobacco smoking is common among psychiatric patients, especially among thos e with schizophrenia, where the prevalence is extremely high, 74% to 88%, c ompared with 45% to 70% in patients with other psychiatric diagnoses. Patie nts with anxiety disorders are less well investigated in this respect, part icularly obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients. Eighty-three psychia tric outpatients with OCD and 110 members of the Swedish OCD Association re sponded to questions concerning their smoking habits. Among OCD patients, 1 4% were current smokers (compared with 25% in the general population of Swe den), 72% had never smoked, and 11 previous smokers had stopped, mostly wit hout any difficulties. Since a decreased smoking rate among OCD subjects wa s confirmed, the smoking prevalences in schizophrenia and OCD, respectively , seem to represent either end of a continuum, and OCD may also differ sign ificantly from other anxiety disorders in this respect. Possible implicatio ns of this finding for the purported frontal lobe dysregulation in OCD are discussed. Copyright (C) 1999 by W.B. Saunders Company.