Prescription patterns and quality of information provided for consumers ofbenzodiazepines

The long-time benzodiazepine use by a considerate part of the population an d its adverse consequences such as somatic and cognitive side effects, inte ractions with other drugs and alcohol and its possible impairment of qualit y If life has provoked a critical discussion about the practice of prescrib ing benzodiazepine and the information provided by physicians. We therefore investigated these issues in admitted patients of a general hospital. All patients having been admit ted to the department of Internal Medicine and t aking benzodiazepine were asked by means of a semi-structured interview, wh ich was repeated after 1 year. In 90 % of later benzodiazepine discontinuer s and in almost 50 % of benzodiazepine continuers, tranquilisers were first prescribed during hospital admission. Only 2 % of all patients estimated t he information provided by the prescribing physicians as satisfying and abo ut 2/3 reported that they did not get any information at all. 66 % of all p atients were informed about dependency risks. This information was mainly p rovided by pharmacies, friends and patient information leaflets; only about 20 % of all patients were informed by the prescribing physician. Guideline s for tranquiliser prescription only seem to have a poor impact oil the cli nical practice. The education of physicians about the risks of low-dose dep endencies and especially about complementary therapy methods needs to be im proved.