Benzodiazepine prescription to middle-aged women: it is done indiscriminately by family physicians?

It has been frequently suggested that physicians' indiscriminate prescribing has caused the high level of patient use of benzodiazepines. To determine whether this was true at Ottawa Civic Hospital's Family Medicine Centre, patient charts of women aged 45 to 65-the age-sex group that received the highest number of new prescriptions for diazepam (Valium) or oxazepam (Serax) - were studied. Middle-aged women who received a new prescription for one of these drugs visited the office significantly more often, had more marital problems, and experienced significantly more life crisis situation than a control group of nonrecipients. These results suggest that the high rate of prescribing is related to high levels of reported life stress in middle-aged women. Further studies in other centers are needed to conclusively disprove the popularly held idea that benzodiazepines are indiscriminately prescribed by physicians.