TY - JOUR
PY - 2022//
TI - Risk of falls associated with long-acting benzodiazepines or tricyclic antidepressants use in community-dwelling older adults: a nationwide population-based case-crossover study
JO - International journal of environmental research and public health
A1 - Na, Inyoung
A1 - Seo, Junyoung
A1 - Park, Eunjin
A1 - Lee, Jia
SP - e8564
EP - e8564
VL - 19
IS - 14
N2 - BACKGROUND: Falls are common in older adults and increase in recent years. This study aimed to examine the risk of falls associated with long-acting benzodiazepines (BZDs) or tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) use in community-dwelling older adults.
METHODS: A nationwide population-based case-crossover design was used. We screened information on 6,370,275 fall or fall fracture cases among community-dwelling elderly patients from the database of the national health insurance data warehouse in South Korea. We extracted the data of elderly patients who visited the hospital for a fall and were diagnosed with the first fall or fall fracture after prescription of long-acting BZDs (n = 1805) or TCAs (n = 554). The study used conditional logistic regression analysis to analyze the associations and stratified analysis by gender and age group to control for their confounding effects.
RESULTS: Risk of falls or fall fractures increased by more than two times after taking long-acting BZDs (odds ratio [OR] = 2.16; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.85-2.52) or TCAs (OR = 2.13; 95% CI = 1.62-2.83). The longer the prescription period of both, the higher the risk of falls or fall fractures was (≥49 days for long-acting BZDs vs. ≥ 56 days for TCAs).
CONCLUSIONS: Long-acting BZDs or TCAs should be avoided or prescribed for a shorter duration based on these adverse effects. Health care providers should focus on fall prevention practices in older adults who take such drugs.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1661-7827 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19148564 ID - ref1 ER -