Determinants of smoking behaviour in outpatients with schizophrenia

The present study is an assessment of the rate and severity of tobacco cons umption in outpatients with schizophrenia, and the determinants of smoking behaviour. Sixty-four patients, assessed by the Item Group Checklist sectio n of the SCAN interview and fitting DSM-IV criteria, were evaluated with CG I and the PANSS scales. In addition, they completed STAI (Spielberger), EPQ (Eysenck), and TPQ (Cloninger) questionnaires. Tobacco dependence was asse ssed by the Fagerstrom test. One hundred and thirty-seven consecutive outpa tients were psychiatric controls. Forty-one out of 64 patients with schizop hrenia (64.1%) were current smokers, this rate being significantly higher t han in other psychiatric patients and general population. The severity of c igarette consumption in smokers was greater (mean of 22.4 cigarettes/day) t han in the general population, but it was not different from that of other psychiatric patients. For patients with schizophrenia, no one variable (exc ept male sex) was different between smokers and non-smokers, but the number of cigarettes/day correlated with state anxiety, trait anxiety, and neurot icism. In the multivariate analysis, the only variable that remained signif icant was neuroticism. The relationship between clinical features and sever ity of smoking behaviour may be linked to non-specific variables such as ne uroticism and anxiety, but not to psychotic symptoms. (C) 2000 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.