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ABSTRACT
Objective: Family beliefs about smoking and cessation may influence whether individuals with mental illness who smoke use effective cessation treatment. We surveyed family members online regarding beliefs about smoking and cessation among people with mental illness. Method: Two hundred fifty-six family members of individuals with mental illness completed an online survey. Responses were summarized and t tests were used to compare responses based on the family member's smoking status. Results: One-quarter of respondents agreed that people with mental illness must smoke to manage mental health symptoms, nearly half (48%) expressed uncertainty about the whether nicotine replacement therapy is harmful for this population, and 69% believed that family members do not have the skills to help an individual with mental illness quit smoking. Conclusions: Misconceptions about smoking and mental illness and uncertainty about the safety of cessation treatment may interfere with family support for quitting smoking among people with mental illness.
Acknowledgments
We thank all family member participants who contributed to our research.
Disclosures
The authors have no conflicts or additional income to report.
Funding
This study was funded by The Dartmouth Clinical and Translational Science Institute, under award number UL1TR001086 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. Partial support was received from the Health Promotion Research Center at Dartmouth funded by a grant from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Cooperative Agreement Number U48 DP005018). The content is solely the responsibility of the author(s) and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.