questions. To establish the number of cigarettes used daily, the psychiatrist
also consulted the nursing staff members who controlled
most of the cigarettes. The history of alcohol and illegal drug abuse or
dependence was assessed by treating psychiatrists using all available
information. Patients could not use alcohol or illegal drugs on hospital
grounds.
For the first time, we used the definition of caffeinism as a caffeine
intake N700 mg/day for smokers (Williams and Gandhi, 2008). As
non-smokers have approximately half the caffeine metabolic capacity
that smokers have (de Leon et al., 2003), a definition of caffeinism in
non-smokers as a caffeine intake N350 mg/day was explored.