Puff and psychosis: a retrospective cohort analysis of psychiatric hospitalisations in patients with schizophrenia and nicotine use.

OBJECTIVES

The association between smoking and patients with schizophrenia has been established through epidemiological studies on various populations. This behaviour not only increases the risk of medical comorbidities associated with smoking, but it can also interfere with treatment and ultimately worsen prognosis. This study aims to determine if nicotine use affects the cumulative number of psychiatric hospitalisations in patients with schizophrenia.

DESIGN

This is a retrospective cohort study using 2018-2023 electronic medical record data.

SETTING

Data was collected at an inpatient psychiatric hospital in Central California.

PARTICIPANTS

There were a total of 825 patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were admitted to the mental health hospital between 2018 and 2023.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome of interest was the number of psychiatric hospitalisations observed among the patients who were smokers versus those who were non-smokers. Our secondary objective was to determine the prevalence of certain medical comorbidities between these two groups.

RESULTS

60.7% of patients had a lifetime smoking history. Accounting for matching, patients who smoked had significantly (p<0.01) more hospitalisations (mean hospitalisations=2.55, SD=2.81) than patients who never smoked (mean hospitalisations=1.64, SD=1.64), even after controlling for covariates. The smoking group also had a higher prevalence of medical comorbidities, but after matching, no difference was found between the groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with schizophrenia and a lifetime smoking history had significantly more hospitalisations compared with patients with schizophrenia who were non-smokers. This can inform disease course in vulnerable populations with a greater propensity to self-medicate with substances. However, further research should be conducted to investigate other factors that can affect this relationship.