Verschreibungs- und Aufklarungspraxis bei BenzodiazepinkonsumentInnen

The long-time benzodiazepine use by a considerate part of the population and its adverse consequences such as somatic and cognitive side effects, interactions with other drugs and alcohol and its possible impairment of quality If life has provoked a critical discussion about the practice of prescribing 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 taking benzodiazepine were asked by means of a semi-structured interview, which was repeated after 1 year. In 90 % of later benzodiazepine discontinuers and in almost 50 % of benzodiazepine continuers, tranquilisers were first prescribed during hospital admission. Only 2 % of all patients estimated the information provided by the prescribing physicians as satisfying and about 2/3 reported that they did not get any information at all. 66 % of all patients were informed about dependency risks. This information was mainly provided by pharmacies, friends and patient information leaflets; only about 20 % of all patients were informed by the prescribing physician. Guidelines for tranquiliser prescription only seem to have a poor impact oil the clinical practice. The education of physicians about the risks of low-dose dependencies and especially about complementary therapy methods needs to be improved.