PSY 350 Week 5 Discussion: Schizophrenia and Smoking

Schizophrenia and Smoking

Those who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia are more likely to result to smoking than any other mental health disease. People with schizophrenia are likely to experience more pronounced neurobiological, psychosocial and financial barriers to stopping smoking than the general population(Aubin, Rollema, Svensson, and , Winterer, 2012). Schizophrenia makes the individuals not motivated to want to quit smoking compared to those who do not smoke. Regardless if the prices increase on nicotine products it will not stop a person for wanting to buy cigarettes. Nicotine makes you feel good just like any other drug that creates a sense of well-being. Nicotine and its receptors play a role in functions such as thinking and cognitive ability, movement, and pain relief. Nicotine in the hippocampus, cortex, and cells that wrap the thalamus in the brain areas involved in several cognitive and sensory deficits of schizophrenia(Brain facts,2012).

Nicotine replacement therapy is intervention that one can use to help smoking cessation. Exercising can help with the reduction of smoking in schizophrenia patients. Smoking is addictive alone and having to deal with a mental illness on top of that I can only imagine how the sufferer feels. The reaction to the dopemine is what causes the person to be addicted to the smoking. It is harder for the person to stop than just thinking about what can motivate them to want to quit smoking. Also thinking about what kind of harm the smoke causes the body can be helpful with one who wants to quit smoking.

References

Aubin H-J, Rollema H, Svensson TH, Winterer G. (2012). “Smoking, quitting, and psychiatric disease”: a review. 36:271–284. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/

Brain Facts. (2012). “Smoking and Schizophrenia”. Retrieved from: http://www.brainfacts.org/