Trends for prescribing of smoking cessation medications

What is it about?

Smoking cessation medications are evidence-based interventions for patients who smoke. In this paper, we have shown that nearly barely 2% of patients without mental illness receive a prescription. For patients with serious mental illness, this increases to 16%.

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Why is it important?

This work is aids in our understanding of how many patients are receiving medication treatment for smoking cessation. Additionally, while it is hopeful to see patients with mental illness and serious mental illness receiving more medication treatment than patients without, these differences are driven by bupropion - which is also clinically recommended for depression. Overall, significant improvements are needed for increasing prescription of smoking cessation medications.