A new University of Melbourne study out today in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, says for people with psychiatric disabilities there has been little change in smoking rates for two decades, despite smoking halving amongst Australia’s general population.

Lead author Kristen Saxone-Moeller says smoking rates remain high despite 75% of respondents saying they wanted to quit or cut down.

The study found 62% of those surveyed smoked, compared to 16 per cent of the general population in Australia.

In New Zealand over 20% of the population over 15 – or 700,000 people - smoke on a regular basis, with consumption around 1,000 cigarettes per adult each year, which is down from 2,000 cigarettes in 1990.

About 5,000 deaths each year are attributed to smoking or second hand smoke in New Zealand, and it is the cause of 80% of lung cancers.

The study also found:

• Smokers with mental illness consumed 50 per cent more cigarettes a day than the general population, averaging 22 cigarettes a day.
• The heaviest smokers in the group smoked up to 80 cigarettes in a day.
• Almost three in five (59 per cent) said they wanted to quit smoking.
• Almost three quarters (74 per cent) said they wanted to cut down.
• One in 10 (12 per cent) had successfully given up smoking.
• Smokers with mental illness were almost three times more likely to consume illegal tobacco.

Ms Saxone-Moeller says the study shows the need for specialist services to help people with mental illness stop smoking.

“Smoking compounds many of the health problems already experienced by people with mental illnesses. Combined with drug therapies that often make them overweight, they are at even greater risk of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes if they smoke.

“The biggest cause of death among people with mental illness is not suicide, it is cardiovascular disease.”

Ms Saxone-Moeller says smoking also places a big financial imposition on many people with mental illness, some of whom spend more than 20 per cent of their income on cigarettes, and suggested that helping people with mental illness to cut down, rather than quit straight away, may be a good strategy for reducing smoking rates.