Continuity of treatment with benzodiazepines in dementia patients

An analysis of German health insurance claims data

verfasst von

Philipp Hessmann, Jan Zeidler, Sarah Neubauer, Mona Abdel-Hamid, Jona Stahmeyer, Sveja Eberhard, Claus Wolff-Menzler, Jens Wiltfang, Bernhard Kis

Abstract

Long-term treatment with benzodiazepines (BZD) should be avoided in dementia patients because of an increased risk of adverse events. We evaluated how continuously dementia patients were prescribed BZD over 12 months. For this observational study, we used claims data from a large German public sickness fund for 2014 and 2015, including patients with an incident diagnosis of dementia in 2014. The aim was to evaluate the continuity of treatment, the frequency of BZD prescriptions and defined daily doses were evaluated. In total, 1298 (5.6%) patients received 4.7± 5.2 BZD prescriptions in 2015 on average. Thereof, lorazepam (47.5%), oxazepam (18.6%), diazepam (14.5%), and bromazepam (12.2%) were most often prescribed. 30.7% of the patients received at least one BZD prescription in each quarter of 2015. Although the total number of patients receiving BZD decreased in 2015, defined daily doses for single substances remained mainly unchanged. The incident diagnosis of dementia was not associated with modifications of prescription behavior. The treatment with BZD was not discontinued in a large proportion of dementia patients, increasing the risk of adverse events. Physicians' awareness of avoiding BZD should be improved and further evidence for the appropriate treatment of psychiatric symptoms in dementia (e.g. sleep disturbances, anxiety) is required.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Center for Health Economics Research Hannover (CHERH)

Externe Organisation(en)

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen e. V. (DZNE)
University of Aveiro
AOK - Die Gesundheitskasse für Niedersachsen

Typ

Artikel

Journal

International Clinical Psychopharmacology

Band

33

Seiten

282-289

Anzahl der Seiten

8

ISSN

0268-1315

Publikationsdatum

01.09.2018

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Psychiatrie und psychische Gesundheit, Pharmakologie (medizinische)

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 3 – Gute Gesundheit und Wohlergehen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1097/YIC.0000000000000230 (Zugang: Geschlossen)