Clearing the air: clarifying the causal role of smoking in mental illness

There is an increasingly strong triangulation of evidence from various study designs and populations that smoking adversely impacts on mental health, in terms of both enhancing the risk of mental illness, and increasing psychiatric symptoms in those with and without diagnosed conditions. While the research priorities lie with elucidating the causal mechanisms for the effects, the clinical priorities pertain more immediately to establishing and disseminating effective smoking cessation interventions within mental health care, in order to protect both the physical and mental health of smokers treated for mental illness.