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Prevalence and correlates of cigarette smoking among patients with schizophrenia in southeast Nigeria
Author(s) -
Aguocha C. M.,
Aguocha J. K.,
Igwe M.,
Uwakwe R. U.,
Onyeama G. M.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/acps.12334
Subject(s) - medicine , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , cigarette smoking , cross sectional study , medical prescription , psychiatry , prevalence , demography , epidemiology , pathology , sociology , pharmacology
Objective To determine the prevalence of cigarette smoking among patients with schizophrenia and to explore their sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Method A cross‐sectional descriptive study of 367 patients with schizophrenia. Instruments administered included sociodemographic questionnaire, Present State Examination: schizophrenia section to confirm schizophrenia diagnosis and Present State Examination: tobacco section to those that smoked. Results A total of 189 females (51.5%) and 178 (48.5%) males were studied. The mean age of the participants was 34.1 ± 9.94 years. Two hundred and forty‐one (65.7%) had never being married. Two hundred and three (55.3%) had secondary school education. A lifetime prevalence of 25.9% and a current smoking rate of 20.4% were reported. Ninety five (53.4%) of the males had smoked at least once in their lifetime. None of the females smoked. Among those that smoked, being unmarried (ϰ² = 6.51, P < 0.01) and unemployed (ϰ² = 5.11, P < 0.02) were associated with prescription of high doses of antipsychotics. Of those that smoked, the managing psychiatrist identified or documented only twenty‐five (26.3%) of them (kappa = 0.80, P < 0.00). Conclusion The rate of smoking in Nigerian patients with schizophrenia is considerably less than is reported for their Western counterparts.