Outpatient tobacco dependence treatment for individuals with severe mental illness: The butt out program outcomes

The Butt Out program is a tobacco dependence intervention that provides smoking cessation counselling and pharmacotherapy for clients with severe mental illness through Vancouver Community Mental Health Services. Participants received up to 24 weeks of pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation along with 12 weeks of behavioural therapy with another 12 weeks of group support. Based on an intent-to-treat analysis (n = 35), the end-of-treatment smoking abstinence rate was 8.6%. For individuals who completed the program (n = 28), the abstinence rate was 10.7%. Among program completers, 28.0% were able to achieve a 50% reduction to their baseline cigarette consumption. Due to the modest gains in abstinence and moderate improvements in smoking reduction achieved at the end of treatment, higher intensity programs of a longer duration may be indicated for future tobacco dependence interventions in psychiatric outpatient settings.