MedWire News: Bipolar disorder patients are significantly more likely to smoke than people in the general population, study findings show.

“Alcohol and illegal drug use are frequently associated with bipolar disorder and usually reported in studies of bipolar patients,” explain Dr Jose de Leon, from Mental Health Research Center at Eastern State Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky, and team.

But they add: “Surprisingly, tobacco smoking in bipolar patients has not received the same attention as alcohol and illegal drugs.”

To address this, the researchers compared the prevalence of smoking among 99 patients with bipolar disorder, 258 with schizophrenia, 67 with major depression and 402 mentally healthy volunteers.

They also studied data on smoking rates among the general population of Kentucky.

The team found that, compared with the general population, bipolar disorder patients were 5.0 times more likely to be current smokers and 2.6 times more likely to have ever smoked.

Compared with the volunteers, bipolar patients were 7.3 times more likely to be current smokers and 4.0 times more likely to have ever smoked.

Bipolar disorder patients were also significantly less likely to have quit smoking than people from the general population or the volunteers.

Overall, 57% of patients with major depression, 66% of those with bipolar disorder and 74% of those with schizophrenia were daily smokers.

Writing in the journal Bipolar Disorders, Dr de Leon and team conclude: “Bipolar disorder was associated with significantly higher prevalences of tobacco smoking behaviours compared with the general population or volunteer[s].

“It is possible that smoking behaviours in bipolar disorder may have intermediate prevalences between major depression and schizophrenia”.

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