Behavioral health clients and smoking cessation treatment outcomes

More than half of the cigarettes smoked in the US are smoked by people with co-occurring behavioral health issues. Research from the 2010 PHMC Household Health Survey has shown that these populations are as likely, or more likely, than other smokers to want to quit smoking and to make a quit attempt. Smokers with mental health conditions are statistically significantly more likely to try to quit smoking than smokers without these conditions, and smokers in recovery are as likely as smokers not in recovery to try to quit.

The SEPA Tobacco Control Project's initiative to reach smokers in behavioral health (BH) settings enrolled 244 BH clients between February and December of 2012, or 14% of the 1,708 total clients enrolled during that period. Initial data from baseline surveys show that upon enrollment BH clients on average smoke more cigarettes per day than other clients and their average motivation (7.7 on a scale of 1 to 10) to quit smoking is significantly less than that of other clients (8.5). Compared to other clients fewer BH clients stop smoking but on average they do have significant reductions in the number of cigarettes they smoke per day.

This presentation will compare BH clients to other smokers enrolled in cessation programs, and highlight the similarities and differences between the populations and their treatment outcomes. These comparisons will help us understand the characteristics of BH clients in order to formulate the most successful approaches to their tobacco treatment.