Benzodiazepine discontinuation with prolonged-release melatonin: hints from a German longitudinal prescription database
| Autor: | Mondher Toumi, S. Bineau, K. Maman, Dieter Kunz, Dominique Milea |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Research design medicine.medical_specialty medicine.drug_class Pharmacology Hypnotic Melatonin Benzodiazepines Germany Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders Internal medicine Insomnia Humans Hypnotics and Sedatives Medicine Pharmacology (medical) Medical prescription Aged Retrospective Studies Benzodiazepine business.industry Retrospective cohort study General Medicine Middle Aged Discontinuation Delayed-Action Preparations Female medicine.symptom business medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy. 13:9-16 |
| ISSN: | 1744-7666 1465-6566 |
| DOI: | 10.1517/14656566.2012.638284 |
| Popis: | Prolonged-release (PR) melatonin is approved in Europe for the treatment of insomnia in patients aged 55 years and above. The objective of the study was to describe its prescription patterns and its impact on hypnotics use in routine clinical practice.This is a retrospective study analyzing PR melatonin prescription data from a German longitudinal database (IMS(®) Disease Analyzer). All patients initiating PR melatonin over the 10 months after approval (April 2008 - February 2009) were included. Patients were classified according to their use of hypnotic benzodiazepines or benzodiazepine-like drugs (BZD/Z) in the 3-month period before and after PR melatonin initiation.Of the 512 eligible patients, 380 (74%) were aged ≥ 55 years, 344 (67%) women and 112 (22%) previous BZD/Z users. Most of the latter (79/99, 79.8%) had used BZD/Z for at least 180 days. Approximately one-third (35/112, 31%) discontinued BZD/Z after PR melatonin initiation, and the BZD/Z discontinuation rate was higher in patients receiving two or three PR melatonin prescriptions than in patients receiving only one prescription (10/24 = 42% vs 25/88 = 28%, p = 0.21). Of the 400 patients without prior BZD/Z use, 39 (10%) received BZD/Z during the follow-up.Based on the observed 31% discontinuation rate, PR melatonin may help to facilitate BZD/Z discontinuation in older insomniacs. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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