Depression Among Non-Daily Smokers Compared to Daily Smokers and Never-Smokers in the United States: An Emerging Problem

Abstract

This is the first study to investigate changes in the prevalence of depression among non-daily smokers compared to daily smokers and never-smokers over the past decade in a nationally representative sample of the United States. The results suggest an increase in depression among non-daily smokers over time that did not similarly occur for daily smokers. Further, there were several subgroups of non-daily smokers among whom depression has increased more rapidly. This study suggests the need for more information about the relationship between depression and non-daily smoking including the impact of depression on quit attempts and outcomes.

Depressive symptoms and suicidal behaviours in adolescent non-daily smokers compared to daily smokers and never-smokers in Korea: National cross-sectional study

“…The results of this study expanded upon and shared similarities with previous findings on the relationship between mental health and non-daily smoking. The prevalence of depressive symptoms of non-daily smokers in this study was 39.5%, which is similar to previous findings [ 8 ]. Results of the study is consistent with the previous reports that non-daily smoking is associated with increased risk for depression diagnoses (OR 1.29) [ 38 ].…”

“…Respondents who responded to ‘Yes’ to the first question and responded from ‘1–2 days’ to ‘20–29 days’ were classified as non-daily smokers (NDS). We excluded 5,499 (8.4%) respondents from the analysis who stated that they experienced smoking during their lifetime but did not smoke a cigarette in the past month (e.g., ex-smokers) [ 8 ]. Finally, we divided the subjects into the following three groups: Never smokers (NS; n = 56,017 (93.3%)), Daily smokers (DS; n = 1,903 (3.2%)) and Non-daily smokers (NDS; n = 2,109 (3.5%)).…”

“…On the contrary, another cross-sectional study reported that smoking frequency was not associated with past‐year major depressive episode after adjusting for socio-demographics and health confounders [ 6 ]. With regard to the age difference, the most recent longitudinal study on Americans reported that the incidences of depression seem to be increasing over time in non-daily smokers, especially among youth [ 8 ]. With regard to the gender difference, another research suggested that depression is associated with non-daily smoking in women but not in men [ 18 ].…”

“…With regard to the gender difference, another research suggested that depression is associated with non-daily smoking in women but not in men [ 18 ]. Although a number of studies investigated the relationship of smoking frequency with depression in adults [ 8 ] or the relationship between smoking and depression in adolescents [ 19 – 21 ], very few studies investigated the association of non-daily smoking and mental health problems in the general adolescent population aged 12–18 years.…”

Factors associated with changing cigarette consumption patterns among low-intensity smokers: Longitudinal findings across four waves (2008–2012) of ITC Mexico Survey

“…We did not assess some potentially important covariates of smoking behaviors, like anxiety disorders and depression, which are associated with greater smoking intensity ( Johnson & Novak, 2009 ; Massak & Graham, 2008 ). As overall smoking prevalence declines in response to tobacco control policies and programs, smoking can become increasingly concentrated among populations with psychological comorbidities and substance use disorders ( Stanton et al, 2016 ; Weinberger et al, 2017 ). Future research should investigate their prevalence and importance in explaining LITS patterns of smoking, including in countries that have only recently adopted strong tobacco control policies recommended by the Word Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.…”