Persistent High Smoking Prevalence in a Swiss Psychiatric Hospital between 2001 and 2020 despite Smoking Bans and Perspectives for Further Necessary Interventions

Excel file: contains the notebook (variable description) and the data used to compute results for the publication https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2024.152015

Data: The data concern smoking prevalence for staff and inpatients of a public psychiatric hospital (HUG - University Hospitals of Geneva - Department of Psychiatry - Switzerland) in 2001 (110 staff and 91 patients); 2005 (104 staff and 183 patients); 2009 (155 staff and 175 patients); 2020 (106 staff and 179 patients).

Abstract of the paper:Smoking, as a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCD), led the World Health Organization (WHO) to recommend measures to decrease tobacco consumption. Declines were observed for the general population in western countries. The present work is a naturalistic observational study which assessed tobacco use on 4 independent occasions for patients and staff in a Swiss public psychiatric hospital between 2001 and 2020. High smoking prevalence was observed, varying between 31% and 39% for staff and 66% and 74% for patients. Despite the implementation of a partial and later a total indoor smoking ban, data showed no decline of cigarette consumption between 2005 and 2020 among patients. These observations are in line with literature showing high smoking rates and no trend of a decline for people presenting with mental health disorders. This study controlled for substance use disorder (SUD), known to be related to higher nicotine dependence, and showed that smoking was not associated with psychiatric diagnosis (mood or psychotic disorders). These elements lead to recommend a global approach using smoking cessation strategies designed for all patients receiving mental health care. Although the alarming state of the tobacco epidemic for these persons is known and evidence-based strategies for smoking cessation exist, implementation of interventions to reduce smoking within mental health settings remains sorely lacking. This paper summarizes smoking cessation interventions that should be used in psychiatry and puts forward the necessity to develop strategies for the large group of not (yet) motivated to quit smokers. Tobacco consumption is a modifiable behavior and changes in mental healthcare routines should allow important health related benefits for smokers presenting with psychic disorders.