Smoking Pattern in Psychiatric Patients

The sample consisted of 86 male patients between the ages of 16 and 65 years attending psychiatric clinic of L. L. R. Hospital, Kanpur. The patients selected randomly, were further subjected to detailed clinical history and a thorough psychiatric assessment. The social and demographic variables and the details of the smoking habits were recorded on a specially prepared proforma. Enquiries were made about cigarette and Bidi smoking, the number of cigarettes smoked and the duration of smoking. Smoking habits were categorized on the basis of Medical Research Council (1960) either as non-smokers (those who had never smoked as much as one cigarette a day for a year), ex-smokers (those who had in the past smoked as much as one cigarette per •day for as long as a year) or smokers (those who had smoked at least one cigarette per day in the preceding month).