Do patient factors alter the relationship between physician characteristics and use of long-acting benzodiazepines?

Despite known hazards associated with their use, long-acting benzodiazepine s are frequently used in the treatment of older adults. While such use has been linked to physician characteristics, the effect of patient factors has not been considered. To investigate this, data from 1423 Quebec community- dwelling subjects of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging were linked to records of prescriptions billed to the provincial health insurance program during the year following study entry. The standardized one-year period pre valence of any use of long-acting benzodiazepines was 12.2%. Among benzodia zepine users, long-acting benzodiazepine use was more common among male pat ients and patients of earlier graduating prescribers and specialist prescri bers. However, the effect of the latter two factors were modified by patien t self-reported anxiety. This study demonstrates that consideration of pati ent factors may be necessary to obtain an accurate estimate of the associat ion between at least some physician factors and use of long-acting benzodia zepines. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.