The study was based on a registry-linkage study of drug-overdose deaths (n=167) with post-mortem toxicological detection of benzodiazepines and/or strong analgesics in Oslo, Norway, from 2006 to 2008. The study was based on data collected for the report “Fatal overdoses in Oslo, Norway, between 2006 and 2008”.
Depending of type of medication, only 30%-60% of the overdose victims had a prescription for the medications detected post mortem, during the four weeks preceding their death.
Overall, dispensed doses of both benzodiazepines and strong analgesics were higher than recommended, and more than half of the deceased had attended two or more different prescribing physicians to receive these medications prior to death.
Younger age and residing outside Oslo were associated with having detection of benzodiazepines and/or strong analgesics when these medications had not been dispensed.
A range of potential preventive measures to reduce the number of overdose deaths are discussed in the paper.
Read the full-length paper here:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/14659891.2015.1077280