Benzodiazepine prescribing practices for homeless veterans with psychological sickness

What query have been you investigating?

Regardless of elevated danger for substance use dysfunction and overdose demise within the homeless inhabitants, benzodiazepine prescribing for this inhabitants has not been examined.

Our group subsequently got down to reply the questions:

• What’s the fee of benzodiazepine prescribing to homeless vs. non-homeless veterans with psychological sickness within the VA system?
• Are homeless veterans extra more likely to obtain dangerous and probably inappropriate prescriptions?

What strategies did you utilize?

We used logistic regression to match probability of benzodiazepine prescribing and assessments to match indicators of dangerous and probably inappropriate benzodiazepine prescribing patterns for homeless veterans with psychological sickness and their housed counterparts.

Our strategy was distinctive in that it’s the first examine to aim to analyze this query. We have been in a position to take action in a big, nationwide VA database, the nation’s largest supplier of homeless providers.

What did you discover?

We discovered that though homeless veterans have been much less possible than their housed friends to obtain a benzodiazepine prescription, they have been extra more likely to obtain dangerous and probably in acceptable prescriptions, together with a number of concurrent benzodiazepine prescriptions and concurrent prescriptions for benzodiazepines and opioids or sedatives.

What are the implications?

To our information this was the primary examine to look at prescribing patterns for benzodiazepines as therapies for a homeless inhabitants, offering novel proof a couple of weak and understudied inhabitants at excessive danger for substance use dysfunction, overdose, and demise. These findings of excessive charges of concurrent prescribing with different sedating drugs are of considerable scientific concern, provided that drug overdose demise within the homeless inhabitants is a number one explanation for demise, at charges as much as 30-fold greater than for the U.S. basic inhabitants. Our outcomes spotlight the necessity for heightened consideration to protected benzodiazepine prescribing practices for homeless veterans.

What are the subsequent steps?

Our hope is that paper can inform clinicians in regards to the significance of prudent prescribing of benzodiazepines to homeless sufferers and encourage suppliers to speak with sufferers about whether or not and the way they mix substances when contemplating whether or not to prescribe benzodiazepines.