ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: There is a trend to make health care facitilities smoke-free because of the overwhelming data associating tobacco smoking and passive smoking with serious health risks except closed psychiatric units. this study was designed to estimate the feasibility of smoking bans on psychiatric inpatient units as a pilot study by assessing smoking incidence, nicotine addiction score and smoking patterns of the psychiatric inpatients. METHODS: The psychiatric inpatients admitted to one mental hospital from June 1 to June 30, 1994 answered to the questionnaires including Fagerstroms Tolerance Questionnaire (8 items) and modified smoking motives questionnaires (21 items). Also the medical records of the patients were examined for sociodemographic data and diagnosis. RESULTS: The smoking incidence of the psychiatric inpatients was 72.7%. After admission to the closed unit, 42.7% of the patients increased the amount of smoking. The mean Fagerstrom Tolerance Questionnaire was 4.89+/-2.38, which was less than nicotine addiction score. Many patients smoked for relief of their stresses. CONCLUSION: There is a need to set a smoke-free or smoke-control psychiatric unit. These data indicate that smoking can be stopped on inpatient psychiatry units if the patients' stresses could be well controlled by some methods other than smoking.