Symptom-triggered therapy for assessment and management of alcohol withdrawal syndrome in the emergency department short-stay clinical decision unit.

Introduction: We previously reported that benzodiazepine detoxification for alcohol withdrawal using symptom-triggered therapy (STT) with oral diazepam reduced length of stay (LOS) and cumulative benzodiazepine dose by comparison with standard fixed-dose regimen. In this study, we aim to describe the feasibility of STT in an emergency department (ED) short-stay clinical decision unit (CDU) setting.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we describe our experience with STT over a full calendar year (2014) in the CDU.

Symptom-triggered benzodiazepine therapy for alcohol withdrawal syndrome in the emergency department: a comparison with the standard fixed dose benzodiazepine regimen.

The aim of the study was to compare symptom-triggered and standard benzodiazepine regimens for the treatment of alcohol withdrawal syndrome in an emergency department clinical decision unit. The authors found that the symptom-triggered approach reduced cumulative benzodiazepine dose and length of stay.