Elderly Illawarra patients may have kept using sleeping tablets for years or even decades – despite lower effectiveness and higher risks – because they believed their GP approved of their long term use, according to the author of a new University of Wollongong study.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The study, titled “The Circle of Silence” and recently published in the journal Australian Family Physician, surveyed several elderly patients about their use of benzodiazepines.
UOW School of Medicine academic, Dr Fiona Williams led the study, which was prompted by her own experience as a GP in Thirroul.
“I’d seen over the years lots of patients coming back for repeat prescriptions, who’d been on sleeping tablets for many years and I wondered why they were remaining on them because they’re thought not to be effective after about two to four weeks,” she said.
“I searched through the literature and found that there was a suggestion that GPs might anticipate that there was going to be some resistance from the patients about stopping them.
“So I wanted to know if patients wanted to come off them”.
Dr Williams said the study found patients remained on sleeping tablets for complex reasons, with several factors working to cause long-term reliance.
“Often patients weren’t aware there were side affects, so increased risk of falls, car accidents or cognitive affects from taking the tablets,” she said.
“And often they thought their GP approved of them because the GP wasn’t questioning them at the time of repeat prescription. But we found a lot of patients would be interested in stopping them, but they hadn’t mentioned it.”
She said she hoped the work would help people to talk about their use of sleeping tablets.
“Patients shouldn’t stop taking tablets all of a sudden, they should do it in consultation with their doctor,” she said.
“Hopefully, people might start this conversation the next time they’re at the doctors, and hopefully doctors might also start talking to patients when giving repeat prescriptions.”
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
