Benzos (benzodiazepines) Are Associated With Death By Suicide.
Distressing findings about Ativan, Xanax, Klonopin and other common medicines, in an era of increasing risk.
The Frontier Psychiatrists is a daily health-themed newsletter. Today, I bring you the disturbing data on benzodiazepine medications as a follow-up to “hit” articles like Klonopin, Xanax, and Benzos!, previously.
As usual, when scientists look at large data sets, we are indebted to our European colleagues and their comprehensive national health system databases—this one was from France.
Risk of suicide attempt and suicide associated with benzodiazepine: A nationwide case-crossover study
This study looked at the same individuals as their own controls—a powerful statistical approach, and compared:
Patients ≥16 years, with hospitalized suicide attempt or suicide between 2013 and 2016, and at least one benzodiazepine dispensing within the 120 days before their act….For each patient, frequency of benzodiazepine dispensing was compared between a risk period (days −30 to −1 before the event) and two matched reference periods (days −120 to −91, and −90 to −61).1
