Tobacco smoking is one of the main risk factors for many chronic illnesses and the leading preventable cause of morbidity and premature death worldwide and also very common among people who are suffering from depression. People with depressive symptoms are about twice more likely to be smokers than the general population and also diagnosed with a greater level of addiction.
People with depression who are trying to make a quit attempt, more regularly experience negative mood changes and also success rates of complete abstinence are lower than the general population. Although, smoking cessation interventions have been shown to be less effective for depressive people compared to the general population, previous studies have shown that behavioral counseling and pharmacotherapy can contribute to tobacco use abstinence.
We must also note that there are several concerns regarding the fact that tobacco cessation as a process can possibly worsen the prognosis for depression. However, a number of studies have reported improvements in the symptoms of depression following smoking cessation. It is also worth mentioning that a meta-analytic review found greater short-term and long-term smoking abstinence when pharmacotherapy is used as a treatment compared with the counselling alone. However, as it is mentioned in the same study, due to the small number of studies and more research is needed.