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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Extent and appropriateness of benzodiazepine use
— results from an elderly urban community | | Author(s) | S Taylor, C F M McCracken, K C M Wilson, J R M Copeland |
| Journal title | The British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 173, November 1998 |
| Pages | pp 433-438 |
| Keywords | Drugs ; Long term ; Anxiety ; Depression ; Longitudinal surveys ; Liverpool. |
| Annotation | Contrary to official guidelines with regard to their mental health, many older people still use benzodiazepines. The authors measured prevalence and incidence of benzodiazepines and examined mental health status as a predictor of benzodiazepine use from two longitudinal studies of people from the same community in Liverpool, sampled in 1982-83 and 1989-91. Benzodiazepine prevalence did not decrease during the period under study, but there was a significant reduction in anxiolytic use. Prevalence of benzodiazepines in women is twice that in men, and incidence of hypnotics is slightly higher in women. Prevalence and incidence of hypnotics are strongly associated with increasing age. There were higher proportions of long-term users (61% and 70%) and continued use was high (52%) among new users. A large proportion of benzodiazepine use was by those who were concurrently depressed. Similarly, anxiety predicted both current and subsequent use of hypnotics. The authors' findings add to the weight of opinion that persistent and long-term use of benzodiazepines should be discouraged. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-981123001 A |
| Classmark | LLD: 4Q: ENP: ENR: 3J: 84B |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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