Family Practice Vol. 21, No. 3, 266-269
Family Practice Vol. 21, No. 3 © Oxford University Press 2004, all rights reserved.
Long-term benzodiazepine users in family practice: differences from short-term users in mental health, coping behaviour and psychological characteristics
Department of Family Practice and a Department of Social Medicine, University Medical Centre St Radboud Nijmegen and b Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Leiden, The Netherlands
Correspondence to SM Zandstra, 229 HSV-SG, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands; E-mail: s.zandstra{at}hag.umcn.nl
Received 10 February 2003; Revised 19 August 2003; Accepted 7 January 2004.
Zandstra SM, van Rijswijk E, Rijnders CATh, van de Lisdonk EH, Bor JHJ, van Weel C and Zitman FG. Long-term benzodiazepine users in family practice: differences from short-term users in mental health, coping behaviour and psychological characteristics. Family Practice 2004; 21: 266–269.
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Abstract |
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Background. Contrary to short-term use, long-term benzodiazepine use is undesirable. Nevertheless, its prevalence is high. To prevent long-term use, it is important to know which short-term users are at risk of becoming long-term users.
Objectives. The purpose of the present study was to identify patient-related factors of long-term versus short-term use of benzodiazepines.
Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out in family practices among users of benzodiazepines with regard to DSM-IV diagnosis, coping and psychosocial characteristics,. In a multivariate logistic regression analysis, long-term use of benzodiazepines was the dependent variable.
Results. A total of 164 short-term and 158 long-term benzodiazepine users participated in the study. Having a DSM-IV disorder and psychiatric co-morbidity, being older, less educated, lonely and using more avoidance coping behaviour was associated with long-term use of benzodiazepines compared with short-term use.
Conclusion. The associations found point to possibilities to reduce long-term benzodiazepine use, for example if patients with these characteristics are treated with the alternatives to benzodiazepines or are monitored closely for a short period after being prescribing benzodiazepines.
Keywords. Benzodiazepine, coping, DSM-IV diagnosis, family practice, psychosocial circumstances.
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Introduction |
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Guidelines advise benzodiazepines for short periods of time, on strict indications, but discourage their longer use because of side effects (dependency, cognitive impairments, falls and traffic accidents).1 Yet daily practice, with long-term use by 1–8% of the population, is quite different.2 The reasons for the discrepancy are not clear, but are probably related to sub-DSM-IV mental health problems and psychological distress that is not classified as formal ‘psychiatric’morbidity. This is at the core of the dispute on the long-term efficacy of benzodiazepines.
As not all those prescribed benzodiazepine will become long-term users, it is worthwhile to investigate which factors are associated with long-term use. For instance, comparing psychiatric morbidity, psychosocial circumstances and coping in short- and long-term users might identify such risk factors. A literature search in Medline, Psyclit and Pubmed on psychiatric diagnosis (DSM-IV or ICD-10) of long-term benzodiazepine users in family practices yielded only a few publications. Ohayon described DSM-IV mental disorders, yet did not specify the duration of benzodiazepine use.3 Vissers concluded in a comparison of long- versus short-term users that coping with life's problems, but not the experienced life problems themselves, were a determinant,4 but did not analyse psychiatric morbidity. Most studies compare long-term users with non-users,5,6 which is less relevant for the prediction of long-term use.
The aim of our study is to identify patient-related factors of long-term benzodiazepine use in family practice.
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Material and methods |
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This cross-sectional study compared short- and long-term benzodiazepine users in family practices with regards to DSM-IV diagnosis, coping and psychosocial characteristics. A survey on psychopathology in the practice population of 32 family practices provided the study data.2 In the Dutch health care system, every citizen is registered with a family physician, and practice populations are therefore equivalent to the general population. Participating family physicians had to have a computerized patient and medication registration system, which currently is the case for >80% of practices. The 64 practices in the region fulfilling these criteria were approached, of which 32 participated. Details of the approach and representativeness of the study population have been described.2 Participating practices comprised more training practices (chi-square = 5.6; P = 0.02) and had fewer patients aged 45–74 but more aged 25–44 in their practice list compared with the Dutch average. The practice populations contained 4% short-term and 2% long-term benzodiazepine users, which is similar to other Dutch studies.7,8 To control for family physicians' work style, equal numbers of short- and long-term users were selected randomly from every practice.
Benzodiazepines were defined as the ATC-coded groups N05BA, CD, CF and CG. Benzodiazepine use was defined as one or more prescriptions recorded in the computerized family practice prescription files. For every registered patient, the prescription was translated into use/non-use for each day, using the issued daily dosage and number of tablets, for the previous 12 months.
Use was defined according to WHO criteria9,10 as short term (prescribed benzodiazepine for 
90 days) and long term (prescribed for 
180 days). Those patients who used benzodiazepines for 91–179 days were excluded.
The psychosocial characteristics of every patient were determined using the following (i) Social Support List for Interactions, 12-item version (SSL 12-I);11 (ii) Loneliness questionnaire;12 (iii) Brugha questionnaire;13 (iv) socio-economic status (SES), income and education level; and (v) three questions from the Ontario Health Survey14 on traumatic youth experiences: "were you placed in a children's home?"; "were you placed in a youth detention centre?"; and "were you raised in foster homes before the age of 16?"
The short version ‘Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations’ (CISS)15 was administerd to determine how the patients were coping and any psychiatric disorders were determined by the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry version 2.1 (SCAN-2.1).16 A clinical psychologist, purpose-trained for this study, conducted all the interviews.
For all SCAN data, DSM-IV diagnoses were automatically computed by means of the SCAN-2.1 algorithm (Table 1).16
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First, univariate analyses of the caseness (presence of at least one specific diagnosis), as well as the total scores of the questionnaires were carried out with long-term benzodiazepine use as dependent variable. Secondly, all independent variables were introduced into a multivariate logistic regression analysis, followed by a manual backward procedure. All analyses were performed with the SAS statistical software package.
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Results |
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The study recruited 164 short-term and 158 long-term benzodiazepine users. In 72 cases, no SCAN interview could be scheduled in time due to logistical reasons, leaving 122 short-term and 128 long-term users with complete data to study.
Comparing study patients with all short- and long-term benzodiazepine users in the practices, short-term users were older (participants > 45 years 63.4% versus 53.8%), but otherwise no differences were found.
Analysis (Table 1)
Caseness, in particular with morbidity diagnosed in two or more diagnostic categories, was statistically significantly associated with long-term benzodiazepine use. No statistically significant association was found for specific diagnoses. Of the psychosocial characteristics, a lower level of education, older age and loneliness were statistically significantly associated with long-term benzodiazepine use. No statistically significant differences were found for the other independent variables.
The multivariate logistic regression showed that the one diagnostic category [odds ratio (OR) 2.38; confidence interval (CI) 1.21–4.69], 2–8 diagnostic categories (OR 3.61; CI 1.40–9.26), avoidance coping style (OR per unit 1.05; CI 1.00–1.10), loneliness (OR per unit 1.09; CI 0.99–1.19), lower level of education (OR 2.00; CI 0.90–4.43) and older age (OR per unit 1.07; CI 1.04–1.09) were related to long-term use. The goodness of fit of the model was satisfying (Nagelkerke R2 = 0.2750). Interactions and confounders were not found between the different variables.
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Discussion |
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Psychiatric (co-) morbidity, an avoidance coping behaviour, loneliness, older age and lower education were associated with long-term benzodiazepine use compared with short-term use. The cross-sectional design implies that we cannot analyse cause–consequence relationships. However, comparing long-term with short-term users rather than with non-users provides clear suggestions of factors related to long-term use. As we controlled for the influence of the prescribing family physician on long-term use, our findings represent true patient factors.
Although psychiatric morbidity was more strongly associated with long-term than with short-term use (in about half versus a third of the cases), the presence of a ‘formal’ DSM-IV diagnosis could not in itself completely explain long-term use.
Psychological characteristics and coping were inter-related with psychiatric morbidity, which has been described.17,18 Nevertheless, loneliness, education level and avoidance coping were related in their own right to long-term benzodiazepine use.
Training practices were over-represented, which may have resulted in a more restricted benzodiazepine prescribing routine in the study sample.
Usually, psychological characteristics, coping and co-morbidity are largely ignored in guidelines and recommendations of benzodiazepine use, but our findings point out that this characterizes long-term users. There is a lack of evidence of the (long-term) effectiveness of benzodiazepines for these features that may underline the complexity and vulnerability of these patients. In the absence of further evidence of benzodiazepine effectiveness, we recommend caution in starting prescribing benzodiazepines, and, when prescribing, regular evaluation of the effects, in particular when prescribed in the absence of a psychiatric diagnosis.
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Acknowledgments |
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We thank the participating practices and patients for their co-operation during this study. This work was funded by a grant from the Prevention Fund [now the Council for Medical and Health Research (ZonMW)].
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References |
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