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Guidelines for the prevention and treatment of benzodiazepine dependence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Richard Pether
Richard Pether*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London E1 1BB
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The Substance Misuse Committee of the Mental Health Foundation has produced a booklet called Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of Benzodiazepine Dependence. The problem addressed is twofold: encouraging and managing withdrawal, and preventing new cases of dependence. There is no room for complacency because although prescriptions for anxiolytics have halved over the past ten years, prescriptions for hypnotics are unchanged – now twice the number for anxiolytics. The average GP can expect to have about 50 long-term benzodiazepine users on his or her list. The long-term safety of these drugs is uncertain and there are side effects, e.g. memory impairment, ataxia and falls in the elderly, and road traffic accidents.

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Briefings
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 9 , September 1993 , pp. 556 - 557
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993
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