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Frequency of benzodiazepine prescribing

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Despite a substantial decline in prescribing of benzodiazepines, hypnotics still account for a large number of prescriptions issued by the primary care each year (1,2).

the most commonly prescribed benzodiazepines are diazepam, temazepam and nitrazepam (1)
dispensing data for benzodiazepine showed an overall substantial decrease in England from 1991 to 2009
- a decrease in dispensing of hypnotic benzodiazepines was the main reason for the overall decrease
- there was an overall increase in dispensing of anxiolytic benzodiazepines during this time period but it was less marked than the total decrease in all benzodiazepine dispensing
according to 2002 data issued by the Department of Health:
- GP’s in England wrote 12.7 million prescriptions (cost of £20.9 million) in 2002 compared to 15.8 million prescriptions (worth £13.8 million) in 1992. (higher cost despite fewer prescriptions was due to the more expensive newer agents)
- 30% of prescriptions were for 56 or more tablets - suggesting that a large number of people receive long term treatment
- 56% of prescriptions for the three most common benzodiazepines were prescribed for people over 65 years of age (3)

The General Practice Research Database (GPRD) has shown that

the median length of benzodiazepine prescribing episodes (series of prescription) was 29 days which is slightly more than the maximum time frame recommended by NICE guidelines
over 90% of benzodiazepine prescriptions in this population were prescribed as part of a series of repeat prescriptions,
over one third of the repeat prescription episodes lasted more than 8 weeks (1)

Reference:

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