Smoking cessation for improving mental health
Smoking cessation was associated with an improvement in mental health symptoms compared with continuing to smoke, and the pooled standardised mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for the difference in change inmental health from baseline to follow-up between those who had quit smoking and those whoHad continued to smoke.
Abstract
Taken together, these data provide evidence that mental health does not worsen as a result of quitting smoking, and very low- to moderate-certainty evidence that smoking cessation is associated with small to moderate improvements in mental health. These improvements are seen in both unselected samples and in subpopulations, including people diagnosed with mental health conditions. Additional studies that use more advanced methods to overcome time-varying confounding would strengthen the evidence in this area.