Mental health disorders as barriers to quit for asthmatic smokers

European Respiratory journal
2020

Smoking worsens all asthma parameters. Smokers with psychiatric comorbidities show high nicotine addiction and difficulty to quit. However, the possible interaction between asthma and mental health conditions and its potential impact on quitting behavior on smokers with such commorbidity has not gained research interest.

We examined 2.542.732 patients record which are part of the Whole Systems Integrated Care database (WSIC) in North West London. This is a comprehensive data set in the UK, containing linked coded data from primary care, secondary care, community, mental health and social care across a population of over 2.5 million. We evaluated asthma patient characteristics that are not well studied such as the co-occurrence of sleep disorders, schizophrenia, depression and anxiety and its effects on continuing smoking.

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