Highlights
- •Benzodiazepines are commonly used to control symptoms in heart failure.
- •Patients receiving benzodizepines have severe symptoms and need intensive treatment.
- •Treatment with benzodiazepines in heart failure does not increase patient mortality.
Abstract
Aim
Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are one of the most used drugs to control symptoms in patients
with acute heart failure (HF). However, the evidence on its safety is inconclusive.
The objective was to describe the characteristics of patients admitted for HF and
treated with BZDs and to assess the relationship of this treatment and mortality.
Patients and methods
We performed a cross-sectional, multicentre (74 Spanish hospitals), cohort study.
Patients admitted for HF were divided depending on whether they were treated with
BZDs or not. Propensity score analysis matched patients in both groups in a 1:1 manner
according to different factors. The primary outcome was mortality at day 7. Secondary
outcomes were mortality at days 30 and 180, as well as readmissions and emergency
room visits at 180 days.
Results
We included 1855 patients: 639 (34.4%) had prescribed BZDs treatment versus 1216 (65.6%)
who had not been treated. Patients receiving BZDs had advanced heart disease, severe
symptoms, need more HF intensive treatment and higher mortality. After propensity
matching 381 balanced paired cases were included in each group. Treatment with BZDs
was not associated with greater risk of mortality at day 7 of index hospitalization
(7.6% vs 5.2%, adjusted OR 1.49, 95% CI 0.83–2.68, p = 0.186). There were also no differences between groups in terms of mortality at
day 30 and 180, readmissions or visits to the emergency room.
Conclusions
Our data support that benzodiazepines could be safely used for improving symptoms.
in patients admitted for acute HF in terms of short-medium term mortality.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 14, 2023
Accepted:
April 7,
2023
Received in revised form:
February 28,
2023
Received:
January 14,
2023
Identification
Copyright
© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
