Depressed smokers less likely to kick the habit

by Aimee Keenan-Greene

A new study in the January 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine, suggests suffering from major depression may prevent a smoker from successfully quitting.

The statistics come from surveyed callers who dialed up the California Smokers' Helpline.

About 41 percent of callers reported suffering from some form of depression. Over half the surveyed callers, depressed or not, made at least one attempt to quit after calling the helpline.

At the two-month mark the success rate of those with major depression was much lower than that of mildly depressed or non-depressed callers.  Just one in five callers with major depression reported success. One in three with mild depression was able to remain smoke-free.

Most quitlines do not assess smokers for depression, even though mild depression is known to reduce the success of quitting. This study now suggests major depression reduces the success rate even farther.

This is important because the California quitline receives a high number of calls from heavy smokers and smokers on Medicaid; two circumstances associated with depression. 

Since more than 400,000 smokers call U.S. quitlines every year, the authors believe up to 100,000 depressed smokers coast to coast are not getting the treatment they need.

“Assessing for depression can predict if a smoker will quit successfully, but the assessment would be more valuable if it were linked to services,” says lead study author Kiandra Hebert, Ph.D., of the University of California at San Diego.

Hebert says quitlines, which are extremely popular, are in a good position to offer integrated health services to a large number of depressed smokers and to pass on the services they develop to quitlines across the country. 

If you need to quit, call 1-800-Try-to-Stop for more information to help you stop smoking. 

Source: Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health