Prevalence of benzodiazepines misuse in Ubon Ratchathani province Thailand.

Background: Benzodiazepines misuse, abuse, and dependence is becoming a new problem in medicine used in Thailand.

Objective: Study the prevalence of benzodiazepines use, misuse, abuse, and dependence in Ubon Ratchathani province Thailand.

Material And Method: A cross-sectional household survey was conducted between October 2008 and June 2009. The target population were the people age 15 and above. A sample size of 2280 was selected from three stage stratified random sampling. Benzodiazepines were identified with generic name and drug characteristics. The DSM-IV questionnaires were used to define misuse, abuse, and dependence. Dependence was interpreted with judgment of a psychiatric nurse. For statistical analyses, prevalence was estimated with weight adjustment, variances estimated by Teylor Series Linearization method, and interpreted with 95% CI.

Results: There were 46,805 current users [3.9% (95% CI: 2.2-6.4)], 26,404 misuser [2.2% (95% CI: 1.6-6.2)], 7203 abuser [0.6% (95% CI: 0.1-4.1)] and 2402 dependent [0.2% (95% CI: O. 1-9.2)]. When considering the group of current user, the results showed that 57.2% of this group misused, 16.6% abused and 5.9% were dependent.

Conclusion: Prevalence of use was higher than previously reported in Thailand while more than half of the current users misused Surveillance ofmisuse should be done in the group of current user Medical professional should give recommendations to patients, focusing on harm of misuse. Furthermore, they should limit the amount of medicine when it is necessary to dispense.