Users of benzodiazepines (BZDs) should have their quality of life monitored to minimize the risks associated with long-term treatments. The aim of this study is to use the EuroQol 5D-3L to analyze the quality of life of 127 patients under treatment with BZDs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that lorazepam comprises 25.49% of all dispensing requests, and that the mean duration of BZDs treatments is four years (range: 0.3–25). When rating their general health status, BZDs users reported 59.29 points out of 100. Thirty-two percent of patients reported mobility problems; 16.5% reported having a lot of pain or discomfort despite being treated with BZDs, and 16.54% used a BZD together with an opioid analgesic. The EuroQol 5D-3L dimension “anxiety/depression” showed that, despite the use of BZDs, 48.2% of the patients reported being moderately anxious or depressed and 13.4% described themselves as very anxious or depressed. Nevertheless, 37.8% of BZDs users were identified as potential candidates to follow a BZD deprescription plan. In conclusion, BZDs users showed a low quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Older patients and females have been identified as groups of patients that could benefit from integrating the use of the EuroQol 5D-3L instrument into the protocols of the pharmaceutical care follow up.
Opioids have historically been the pharmacological choice in the treatment of moderate to severe pain of oncological and chronic origin but they have also become a growing and controversial tool in the treatment of non-oncological pain that requires a risk/ benefit evaluation. The present study focuses on the opioid tapentadol, the newest opioid considered highly effective in treating cancer and non-cancer pain. According to the WHO Collaborating Center for Drugs Statistics Methodology, the stated Tapendatol Defined Daily Dose (DDD) for oral administration is 400 mg but the prescribed doses range from 100 mg/day in patients without previous opioid treatments up to a maximum of 600 mg/ day. However, the DDD is a unit of measurement that does not have to reflect the prescribed daily dose (PDD) because therapeutic doses usually differ from DDDs by taking into account individual patient considerations and pharmacokinetic conditions.
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