Benzos A Review of Alprazolam Use, Misuse, and Withdrawal

[The Shadow Self]

A Review of Alprazolam Use, Misuse, and Withdrawal

Alprazolam is one of the most widely prescribed benzodiazepines for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Its clinical use has been a point of contention as most addiction specialists consider it to be highly addictive, given ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"Benzodiazepines are implicated in approximately one-third of intentional overdoses or suicide attempts (Henderson et al., 1993). A database review of poisoning admissions to a regional toxicology service revealed that when alprazolam was involved, the median length of stay (LOS) was 19 hours, which was 1.27 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04, 1.54) times longer compared with other benzodiazepines, and patients were 2.06 (95% CI 1.27, 3.33) times more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) compared with other benzodiazepines after multivariate analysis adjusting for age, dose, sex, time to ingestion, and co-ingested drugs (Isbister et al., 2004). In a longitudinal cohort study between July 1, 2011, and June 30, 2012, more than half of the patients who visited hospital and “community practice-based research network” received benzodiazepine prescriptions at least once from their primary care physician (PCP). Those clinicians were found to prescribe benzodiazepines disproportionately to patients with at least some known risk factors for benzodiazepine-related adverse events including increased age, pulmonary diseases, and other substance use disorders (Kroll et al., 2016)."

Just some general HR info for anyone who cares to read it.