Mental Health | Long-term Use of Benzos - Hypnotics Grows Significantly

Long-term use of benzodiazepine and nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics grew significantly in the United States between 1999 and 2014...

The findings are based on data from 82,091 respondents to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey over the 15-year period. The survey looked at medications used in the past 30 days and the duration of use. Researchers characterized use of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics as short-, medium-, and long-term.

Between 1999 and 2014, the increase in benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine use was driven mainly by hikes in medium- and long-term use, according to the study, even after researchers adjusted for age and race-ethnicity.

“In most years, only a fifth of current benzodiazepine and nonbenzodiazepine users reported short-term use,” researchers wrote.

According to a Psychiatric News Alert report on the study:

• Use of benzodiazepines more than doubled, from 2% of respondents in 1999-2000 to 4.2% in 2013-2014.
• Use of non-benzodiazepines more than tripled from 0.4% in 1999-2000 to 1.6% in 2013-2014.
• Approximately 97% of non-benzodiazepines in 2013-2014 were prescribed for sleep problems (85.1% of them for medium- or long-term use).
• Approximately 60% of benzodiazepines were prescribed for anxiety (83% for a medium- or long-term use), 29.3% for sleep (84.7% for medium- or long-term use), and 11.4% for mood (81.8% for medium- or long-term use).

“Monitoring of use is needed to prevent adverse outcomes,” researchers wrote.

“Promoting the availability of behavioral sleep treatments may help reduce the need for pharmacological sleep interventions,” Psychiatric News Alert quoted from the study, “because sleep problems remain a major reason for their long-term use.”

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