Relationships between Cigarette Smoking and Socio-Demographic and Clinical Characteristics in Patients with Schizophrenia in South Korea / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: In patients with schizophrenia, the prevalence of smoking is significantly higher than that of the general population. This study aimed to evaluate the relationships between cigarette smoking and socio-demographic and clinical characteristics in patients with schizophrenia in South Korea. METHODS: Post analysis of 2008-2009 three multi-center studies on the paliperidone extended-release switching was performed. A total of 509 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were recruited and interviewed regarding socio-demographic variables, smoking characteristics. Krawiecka Scale, Clinical Global Impression-Schizophrenia-Severity, Clinical Global Impression-Schizophrenia-Improvement, and Personal and Social Performance Scale were used to evaluate psychological disturbance. Safety assessments included adverse events, evaluation of extrapyramidal symptoms using the Drug Induced Extra Pyramidal Symptoms Scale, and laboratory tests. RESULTS: The results revealed that the prevalence of smoking in Korean patients with schizophrenia is significantly higher than that of the general population. Male, patients with occupation, and paranoid type showed higher rate of smoking and smokers with schizophrenia had higher rates of overweight, thick waist, high blood pressure than non-smokers with schizophrenia. The results revealed that smokers with schizophrenia had higher rating scales of negative and cognitive symptoms. CONCLUSION: From this study, we reported significant relationships between cigarette smoking and socio-demographic and clinical characteristics in patients with schizophrenia in South Korea. More studies will be needed to evaluate the association between cigarette consumption and schizophrenia, effect of smoking according to the antipsychotics, mechanism of nicotine on schizophrenia.