조현병 환자의 흡연 전후 심박변이도 변화

Effect of smoking on heart rate variability in patients with schizophrenia

Purpose: Across psychiatric diagnoses, smoking prevalence is highest among those with schizophrenia. Smokers with schizophrenia often report smoking in order to relax or calm themselves. This study was done to compare heart rate variability before and after the smoking. Method: This was one group pretest-post test design in which 52 men and 8 women with schizophrenia took part between February 2 and 14, 2009. We measured the following: five-minute heartrate variability; high-frequency(HF); low-frequency(LF); the ratio of LF to HF, and the SD(Standard Deviation) of all normal R-R intervals(Standard deviation of all normal intervals; SDNN) before and after the smoking. Results: RMSSD, Ln TP, Ln HF were significantly lower after than before the smoking(p<.01; p<.05; p<.001). LF/HF ratio were significantly higher after than before the smoking( p<.05). SDNN, Ln LF were not significantly lower after than before the smoking. Conclusion: They have significantly lower RMSSD values, Ln TP values, Ln HF values after than before smoking. The results of this study indicate that the smokers with schizophrenia have significantly lower cardiac autonomic control after smoking. This suggest that smoking will affect reduced heart rate variability and increase ANS instability. So, the results showed that smokers with schizophrenia could not relax or calm themselves through smoking behavior.