Tobacco status,impulsivity, and the five-factor of the PANSS in paranoid schizophrenia

There is consistent evidence that impulsivity is linked to tobacco consumption and to symptomatology in schizophrenia. In the current study, we propose a new integrative model of the relationship between impulsivity, psychopathological symptoms, and tobacco status in patients with paranoid schizophrenia. We investigated 33 paranoid schizophrenia patients and 37 healthy controls using a battery of psychopathological scales included the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID), the five-factor model of the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-10), and the UPPS Impulsive Behavior scale (UPPS). Step-wise regression analysis revealed that positive factor of the PANSS and tobacco status contributed positively and significantly to the explained variance of impulsivity. In addition, non-planning impulsivity and sensation-seeking emerged as significant predictors of tobacco status, while smoking predicted non-planning impulsivity and sensation-seeking. Our results suggest that the relationship between sensation-seeking and tobacco use is reciprocal and proposes a new integrative model of the relationship between impulsivity, positive symptoms and tobacco status in patients with paranoid schizophrenia. However, the exact mechanisms for these relationships deserve further investigation.