Prescribing Antidepressants and Benzodiazepines in the Netherlands: Is Chronic Physical Illness Involved?

Table 4

Hazard ratios (95% confidence interval (CI)) of benzodiazepines or antidepressant prescriptions in 2000–2004 for those without such prescriptions in 1999, analysed separately for men and women and for persons younger and older than 65.

	Hazard ratio* (95% CI) of incident benzodiazepines prescriptions		Hazard ratio* (95% CI) of incident antidepressants prescriptions
	Men	Women	Men	Women
	(22.8% of 262,936 with prescription)	(30.0% of with prescription)	(8.0% of 292,267 with prescription)	(11.5% of 395,135 with prescription)
Reference	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Diabetes	1.06 (1.00–1.13)	1.10 (1.04–1.16)	1.20 (1.09–1.32)	1.28 (1.19–1.38)
Pulmonary	1.44 (1.38–1.50)	1.46 (1.40–1.51)	1.48 (1.39–1.58)	1.57 (1.49–1.65)
Cardiovascul r	1.24 (1.22–1.27)	1.23 (1.21–1.25)	1.18 (1.14–1.21)	1.16 (1.13–1.18)
Multimorbidity	1.45 (1.41–1.50)	1.31 (1.27–1.35)	1.60 (1.52–1.68)	1.46 (1.41–1.51)
	< 65 years (26.4% of 400,699 with prescription)	>= 65 years (27.4% of 183,740 with prescription)	< 65 years (9.9% of 454,579 with prescription)	>= 65 years (10.3% of 232,841with prescription)
Reference	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Diabetes	1.10 (1.04–1.16)	1.09 (1.02–1.16)	1.29 (1.20–1.39)	1.24 (1.13–1.36)
Pulmonary	1.44 (1.39–1.49)	1.49 (1.42–1.57)	1.57 (1.50–1.65)	1.40 (1.40–1.61)
Cardiovascular	1.22 (1.20–1.24)	1.27 (1.25–1.29)	1.20 (1.17–1.23)	1.15 (1.12–1.18)
Multimorbidity	1.36 (1.32–1.40)	1.40 (1.36–1.44)	1.60 (1.53–1.67)	1.46 (1.40–1.52)

^∗Hazard ratio adjusted for age and sex.