Do e-cigarettes help people with mental illness stop smoking?

Joint BHF/CRUK Lynn MacFadyen PhD Studentship in Tobacco Control: E-cigarettes for harm reduction in people with mental illness

People with mental illness are more likely to smoke, which may help explain why they have a shorter life expectancy. Some current smoking cessation techniques do work but, in general, people with mental health problems struggle more than others to stop smoking. People suffering from mental illness can be reluctant to stop smoking as they feel that their mental health may deteriorate as a result. We need to find new ways to help them stop and reduce their likelihood of developing diseases such as heart disease or cancer. Electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes) are often promoted as a new way of reducing harm from cigarettes. In some cases, they have been found to help people stop smoking and may be deemed more acceptable by smokers than other smoking cessation products like chewing gum and medicated patches. But we don’t yet know if e-cigarettes can benefit those with mental illness in the long term. We’d like to know if this group will use e-cigarettes as a cessation aid and if healthcare professionals engaging with these patients would recommend them. BHF PhD studentship grants train talented young graduates in cardiovascular research and enable them to gain a doctorate degree – this particular studentship is in partnership with Cancer Research UK. Psychologist Dr Lion Shahab from University College London has received a grant to train a health psychology graduate, who has been working in Dr Shahab’s group at UCL since 2013. The student will carry out focus groups with people with mental illness and with health professionals who care for them, to find out their perceptions of e-cigarettes. These focus groups will inform the second stage of the project – a pilot four-week trial to test if e-cigarettes actually can reduce smoking in people with mental illness.