Study, Aug/20: Are seniors dependent on benzodiazepines? National survey- France

The full title of this French study is "Are seniors dependent on benzodiazepines? A national clinical survey of substance use disorder ".

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32860424/

Abstract

Benzodiazepines and related drugs (BZD/Z) are used longer than recommended in the elderly population. However, to date, very few attempts have been made to evaluate dependence on BDZ/Z among the elderly population. We conducted a national multicentric observational prospective study aimed at evaluating the prevalence of and risk factors for dependence among elderly adults. Patients aged 65 or older who were treated with BZD/Z for at least three months were evaluated through clinical interviews that conformed to official DSM dependence criteria. Among the 1024 patients included in the survey, 424/976 (41.4%) met the dependence criteria. In the multivariate logistic regression model, dependent patients were categorized as follows: younger (OR=0.97), living mostly alone (OR=1.45), showing psychiatric problems (OR=2.22), having additional treatments (other than BZD/Z) (OR=1.37), having long-lasting treatment (OR=1.04), exhibiting significant relationship difficulties (OR=1.96), committing transgressional behaviours to procure BZD/Z (OR=2.70), and wanting to stop their consumption of BZD/Z (OR= 7.60). A latent class analysis, which was applied to sort out subgroups within dependent patients, identified two profiles according to the prevalence of dependence items: profile 1 (73%), "withdrawal syndrome when BZD/Z is stopped" (100%) and "previous unsuccessful attempts to stop consumption" (82%); and profile 2 (27%), "tolerance" (76%) and "intake in larger amounts or over a longer period than intended" (86%). BZD/Z dependence is frequent in the elderly population, and among dependent patients, we found two profiles corresponding to positive and negative conditioning of the psychoactive effects of BZD/Z. This study is registered as NCT01920581.