Prevalence and severity of tobacco use and access to tobacco cessation among tertiary care psychiatric in-patients in India

BACKGROUND: Rates of smoking in persons with mental illness are reported to be two times higher than those without mental illness in developed countries. We aimed to examine the prevalence and severity of tobacco use, and access to tobacco cessation services among tertiary care psychiatric in-patients in India. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 500 consecutive adult in-patients in tertiary care with ICD 10 diagnoses, F20-59, were administered a sociodemographic and clinical proforma, Clinical Global Impression—Severity scale, Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence, Tobacco Craving Questionnaire, Reasons for quitting questionnaire, and Smoke Scale—Adults. Urine cotinine levels were estimated in the last 100 patients. Details of tobacco use and cessation interventions provided were obtained. RESULTS: Overall prevalence of current tobacco use was 34.00%; 34.3%, 32.6%, 43.6%, and 16.7% in patients of F20-29, F30-39, F40-49, and F50-59 categories, respectively. Males used tobacco products at a significantly higher rate (44.85% vs. 17.58% in females) and were highly dependent. Smokeless tobacco use was reported in 20.5% and 18% of female patients with F20-29 and F30-39 diagnoses, respectively. More than half of the tobacco users were not asked about tobacco use and 89.4% of the users were provided no prior assistance for cessation at the time of assessment. Urinary cotinine levels were significantly greater for those who use smokeless forms than smokers or dual users. CONCLUSIONS: Nearly a third of psychiatric in-patients are current users of tobacco. Moderate to severe tobacco dependence was observed across psychiatric diagnoses. The assessment and interventions provided were suboptimal.