| Abstract: | OBJECTIVES: Benzodiazepines are commonly prescribed forolder people. As the elderly are more susceptible to potentialadverse outcomes from benzodiazepines, it is recommended thatbenzodiazepines be used for short periods with a reduced dosage.This observational study aimed to investigate benzodiazepineuse, in terms of treatment period and mean dosage, and examinecharacteristics associated with use. METHODS: This was anobservational study of randomly selected subjects enrolled in theNational Health Insurance program, aged at least 65, whoreceived at least one prescription for benzodiazepines in 2002.They were grouped according to treatment period and meandosage. The treatment period was defined as the number of dayscovered by prescribed benzodiazepines. The mean dosage wasdefined by the average defined daily dose (DDD) of each indi-vidual. An ordered logit regression model was adopted to eval-uate associations of characteristics with benzodiazepine usage.RESULTS: Of the 17,024 elderly persons included, a total of7451 had received at least one prescription for benzodiazepines.Individuals with comorbid mental disease such as insomnia,anxiety, and depression, and comorbid physical disease such ascardiovascular disease, cancer, and renal disease, and previousreceipt of benzodiazepines were more likely to receive benzodi-azepine prescriptions. Those older than 75 years, male, withinsomnia, anxiety, depression, mental disease, physical diseasesuch as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, previous receipt ofbenzodiazepines, and higher prescription-overlap ratio weremore likely to receive longer treatment. Subjects with insomnia,anxiety, depression, other mental disease, arthritis, previousreceipt of more benzodiazepines, and higher prescription-overlapratio were more likely to receive higher-dose therapy. CON-CLUSION: According to our preliminary findings, the one-yearprevalence of benzodiazepine use among the elderly was approx-imately 44%. Mental disorders, previous exposure to more benzodiazepine, and higher prescription-overlap ratio were asso-ciated with both longer treatment and higher mean daily dose. |
