The Meaning of Smoking for Patients with Mental Disorder

Abstract

When patients smoke cigarettes in psychiatric services, it brings to the forefront current ethical and political dilemmas. This study aims to explore the meaning attributed to smoking by mental health patients who smoke and who are hospitalized in a psychiatric ward of a general hospital. This qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 96 smokers who were hospitalized in a psychiatric ward in Brazil. Semi-structured interviews, test of nicotine dependence, and content thematic analysis were carried out. The results show that tobacco has an important role in the lives of psychiatric patients. The meanings they attribute to tobacco use are related to overcoming difficulties that are consequential of mental disorders and of side effects caused by their treatments.