ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2017
Long-term benzodiazepine and Z-drugs use in England: a survey of general practice [corrected].
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 48 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Comparative effectiveness of interventions to facilitate deprescription of benzodiazepines and other sedative hypnotics: systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2025Pooled it
- Psychotherapeutic and pharmacological agents for post-traumatic stress disorder with sleep disorder: network meta-analysis.Annals of medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Non-pharmacological Treatment for Elderly Individuals With Insomnia: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Synaptic correlates of benzodiazepine tolerance.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- Pharmacological principles for safe benzodiazepine and Z-drug dose reduction.Psychological medicine · 2026Review
- Long-term benzodiazepine use is associated with poorer cognitive function in schizophrenia: findings from the SALT-C cohort.BMC psychiatry · 2026Observational
- Analysis of Psychotropic Polypharmacy and Associated Factors in Antidepressant-Treated Patients With Depressive Disorder: A Population-Based Cohort Study Using Real World Data.Depression and anxiety · 2026Article
- Impact of perceived side-effects of psychotropic treatments on quality of life in patients with severe mental illness.Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2025Article
- Facilitators and barriers to the deprescribing of benzodiazepines and Z-drug hypnotics in patients under 65 on adult mental health wards.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Pain and Sedative Medication Use Among Individuals With Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Nationwide Population-Based Cohort Study.Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics · 2025Article
- 'I Wish It Were More Often Told to People Before They Are Prescribed These Medications How Hard It Is to Get Off Them': A Qualitative Descriptive Analysis of Free-Text Responses to a Survey on Reducing and Stopping Psychiatric Medication.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Article
- Effect of graduated drug therapy for moderate-to-severe chronic insomnia on the severity of disease: an observational study in Germany.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2025Observational
- Association Between Non-Benzodiazepine Hypnotics and Tinnitus: A Nationwide Cohort Study in Taiwan.Nature and science of sleep · 2025Article
- UK Medical Cannabis Registry: A clinical outcomes analysis for insomnia.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Assessment of beliefs and attitudes towards benzodiazepines using machine learning based on social media posts: an observational study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Observational
- Mixture ofNutrients · 2024Article
- Exploring the co-occurrence of depression, anxiety and insomnia symptoms, diagnoses and treatments in primary care: observational study using UK primary care data.BJPsych open · 2024Article
- The effect of lemborexant on insomnia in patients with psychiatric disorders: Detailed evaluation using the Athens Insomnia Scale.PCN reports : psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2024Article
- UK Medical Cannabis Registry: Assessment of clinical outcomes in patients with insomnia.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on by
- Erratum issuedCorrections.2018
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCurrent British National Formulary (BNF) guidelines state that benzodiazepines and zolpidem, zopiclone, and zaleplon, commonly known as Z-drugs (BZD), be prescribed for no more than 4 weeks, although anecdotal data suggest that many patients are prescribed BZDs for much longer. As there are no recent, evidence-based estimates of long-term (>12 months) BZD use in the UK, the scale of this potential problem is unknown.
aimTo produce the first reliable, evidence-based estimate of long-term BZD use in the UK. DESIGN AND
settingEstimates of UK long-term BZD use were projected from data obtained from a survey conducted in 2014-2015 by the Bridge Project, a prescribed-drug withdrawal support charity in the North of England (Bradford).
methodPercentages of long-term users of BZD were derived from the survey, by sampling primary care GP surgeries with around 100 000 registered patients, and these were applied to UK-wide NHS patient numbers. The data were filtered to exclude the very young and old, and those with other health issues.
resultsThe mean percentage of registered patients prescribed BZDs for more than a year in the survey sample is 0.69% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.54 to 0.84). Applying this value to national patient numbers yields a mean projection of 296 929 (95% CI = 232 553 to 361 305) long-term users of BZD in the UK. The data also suggest that as many as 119 165 of these patients may be willing to accept prescribed drug dependency withdrawal services.
conclusionMore than a quarter of a million people in the UK are likely to be taking highly dependency-forming hypnotic medication far beyond the recommended time scales. As there is evidence that long-term use of BZDs causes adverse physiological and neurological effects, and protracted withdrawal (with associated complications), this represents a serious public health problem.
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Registered trials
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