Conclusion
In conclusion, our results showed that male Chinese patients
with schizophrenia had significantly higher smoking and lower
cessation rates than general population. We found that smoking is
consistently and significantly associated with improved negative
symptoms, while no significant association was found between
smoking and antipsychotics and their EPS. These observations
support the hypothesis that smoking alleviates negative symptoms
in schizophrenia patients, which may account for the heavier
smoking pattern among schizophrenia patients. Although smoking
has a wide range of well-established ill effects on human health,
these findings do raise the possibility of exploring nicotinic
pathways for novel treatments of schizophrenia. Indeed, transdermal
nicotine treatment on non-smoking schizophrenia patients
was shown to significantly improve short term cognitive function
[37]. Recent trials with nicotinic receptor agonists have also shown
promise in alleviating cognitive impairments and negative
symptoms in schizophrenia [38,39].