Keywords
hypnotic
gender
consumption
The Autonomous Community of the Basque Country
How to Cite
Abstract
Anxiety is a reaction to prevent adverse events but when it exceeds threshold, it could be pathological. Insomnia consists of difficulty in falling asleep, maintaining sleep or waking up too early. To treat these disorders psychotropic drugs including benzodiazepines (BDZ) and hypnotics are used. In Spain, the consumption of psychotropic drugs is high.
The goals of this research were: 1) To analyze gender-based consumption of anxiolytics and hypnotics worldwide 2) To perform a gender-based field research of anxiolytics and hypnotics consumption in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (ACBC) between 2006 and 2018. To carry out the research, we performed systematic bibliographic search in five databases and we analyzed anxiolytics and hypnotics consumption data in the ACBC.
The consumption of anxiolytics and hypnotics was higher among women in different countries. Diazepam and lorazepam were the most used BDZ. In the ACBC, women consumed 73% of the anxiolytics and 66% of the hypnotic’s packages between 2006 and 2018. The number of anxiolytic and hypnotics packages sold per 100 inhabitants was 1.09 and 0.87 times higher among women, respectively. When the whole group of psychotropic drugs was considered the number of packages sold was higher among women (67%), being gender-based differences smaller in the antipsychotic group. Thus, when the probability of consumption adjusted with antipsychotic control (Odds ratio) was calculated, it was 2.2 fold higher among women for anxiolytics and 2 fold higher for hypnotics. In the ACBC, lorazepam was the most sold drug.
In summary, gender-based consumption, data of anxiolytics and hypnotics in the ACBC were consistent with those collected worldwide. Lorazepam was among the most sold drugs. In the future, it would be interesting to obtain data organized by age or other factors to study their involvement in consumption.