Dose Escalation of Benzodiazepines and Congeners

Speaker: Ingunn Fride Tvete, Scientist, Norwegian Computing Centre, Oslo.

Speaker

Ingunn Fride Tvete, Scientist, Norwegian Computing Centre, Oslo.

Abstract

Present guidelines advocate that tranquillizers and sedating drugs, mainly benzodiazepines and similar drugs, are prescribed for only short periods of time due to the risk of drug dependency. Dose escalation of benzodiazepines and congeners over time is presumably a marker for such a dependency. We wanted to explore the risk of becoming an excessive user of such drugs when the use is prolonged beyond one year by analyzing data from the Norwegian prescription database.

We considered individuals between 18 and 67 years without a prescription for benzodiazepines for at least six months prior to a follow up of three years. We classified their drug status during follow up by their three months drug redemptions: none, low (one defined daily dose (DDD) per day or less), medium (1-2 DDDs per day), and high (> 2 DDDs per day).

We applied a multistate logistic regression model and conducted simulations to estimate the effect of relevant risk factors.

Published Aug. 30, 2012 8:19 AM - Last modified Oct. 3, 2012 11:49 AM