Smoking in schizophrenic patients: A critique of the self-medication hypothesis

Table 1 Predictions for the self-medication hypothesis as applied to smoking in schizophrenic patients

Item	Prediction
A	If smoking relieves symptoms in schizophrenia, patients should be more likely to smoke than healthy people
B	Smoking behaviors and their effects in patients and healthy people should be different
C	Age of onset for regular smoking should correspond to the age of appearance of the first psychotic symptoms
D	Smoking and non-smoking patients should show behavioral differences
E	If smoking relieves side effects of antipsychotic medications, smoking in patients should change with drug treatments
F	If they smoke for reasons other than simply the addictive properties of nicotine, success of smoking cessation programs should be lower in schizophrenic smokers than in healthy smokers
G	Schizophrenic smokers who are successful at smoking cessation should experience worsening of symptoms of the disease or medications
H	The pathology of neurobiological systems (brain regions, circuits and neurotransmitters) underlying schizophrenia should be the same as those influenced by the nicotine in cigarette smoke