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Patients starting antidepressant treatment are often given benzodiazepines to prevent an early increase in anxiety and jitteriness. Using data on U.S. dispensed prescriptions for commercially insured patients between 2001 and 2014, researchers examined the duration of benzodiazepine treatment when it was prescribed for the first time (at least in the previous year) along with the antidepressant.
About 11% of 765,000 adults (median age, 39) who started an antidepressant also started a benzodiazepine. The proportion of patients simultaneously starting both medications increased to a peak of 13% in 2012 and then decreased somewhat; analyses had similar results when benzodiazepine prescriptions occurred within the first month of antidepressant t…