Lancet study debunks one of the greatest mental health myths

“For years the tobacco industry has tried to cement the idea in mental health settings that smoking helps with stress and that making these facilities smoke-free will result in extra aggression and violence towards staff and other patients, but if you look at the data it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“In fact, we now know that quitting smoking improves your mental health and in some cases means people can decrease their medication doses. It’s important to note that in this study patients were provided with nicotine replacement therapy products to clinically manage nicotine withdrawal which is a vital element of any smoking cessation program.

“We are really encouraged by this research that proves overall everyone in the facilities was safer with all physical assaults down by 39%, and in particular staff were significantly safer with patient-towards-staff assaults nearly halved (47%),”

“When you look at the evidence, it would be negligent not to be focusing on supporting people living with mental illness to quit. Smokers are two and half times more likely to attempt suicide¹ than non-smokers, and smoking contributes to people living with a mental illness dying 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population².”

“By removing the need for smoking supervision, the research found significant cost and staff time savings. In this project, the costs of facilitating patient smoking totalled £131,040 (approximately AUD220,000) across four wards, equating to 6028 hours of staff time over a year,” concluded Dr White.