The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7329 p841
11 December 2004

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Sleeping pill prescribing levels “cannot be justified”

Levels of prescribing of hypnotic drugs represent “a risk to individual and public health that cannot be justified”, the latest issue of Drug and Therapeutic Bulletin warns (DTB 2004;42:89).

Commenting on the article, Ike Iheanacho, editor of DTB, said: “Long-term use of hypnotic drugs is common, even though it can cause a range of troublesome unwanted effects and there is little evidence to show it is helpful.”

“Dealing with this problem,” he added, “requires a change in culture, including better education about how to tackle sleep problems and more widespread availability of effective alternatives to drug treatments.”

DTB recommends that hypnotic drugs should only be given intermittently and for short periods to alleviate acute distressing insomnia caused by brief events and that they should be completely avoided in elderly people and in patients with chronic insomnia.