Effects of Very Low Nicotine Content Cigarette use on Cigarette Reinforcement among Smokers with Serious Mental Illness.

Background: Among people without psychiatric disorders who smoke, very low nicotine content (VLNC) cigarette use reduces cigarette reinforcement. Whether this is true of people with serious mental illness (SMI) who smoke is unknown. Using a hypothetical purchase task, we compared the effects of 6-week use of VLNC versus normal nicotine content (NNC) cigarettes on study cigarette and usual brand (UB) cigarette reinforcement among people with SMI who smoke.

Mediational pathways of tobacco use among adult daily smokers with psychiatric symptoms in the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) survey.

Introduction: Individuals with psychiatric conditions suffer disproportionately from tobacco-related morbidity and mortality, but the factors driving this relationship remain unclear. We used data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) to investigate whether associations between internalizing psychiatric symptoms and change in smoking heaviness (as measured by cigarettes per day (CPD) were mediated by self-reported respiratory symptoms, smoking risk perceptions, and cigarette dependence.

Methods: This study used data from PATH Waves 1 through 4 (2013-2017, n = 4,152).