Smoking and depression: a community survey.

Smoking status and symptoms of mental depression were determined as part of a community survey of adults in Los Angeles County. Nearly 42 per cent of the males and 31 per cent of the females wee current smokers. Smokers compared to nonsmokers reported significantly higher levels of depression as measured by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies--Depression (CES-D) index (10.02 vs 8.76, p < .05). The differences were not significant, however, when analyzed by sex. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in the CES-D score when comparing those who had never smoked, ex-smokers, current smokers who wanted to quit, and current smokers who did not want to quit. After controlling in a linear regression analysis for the effects of income, age, employment status, and sex, none of the smoking status variables contributed significantly to explaining the variance of the CES-D score. While both mental depression and smoking are individually major public health problems, the results of this investigation suggest that there is little relationship between the two in the general community.