Benzodiazepine prescription and mortality among patients with benzodiazepine addiction in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) - Protocol for a systematic review

Summary

Benzodiazepines are commonly prescribed to patients in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT).

However, there is a lack of summarized research on the effects on mortality of prescribed benzodiazepines among people in OMT. The purpose of this systematic review is to investigate the effect on mortality after prescription of benzodazepines for benzodiazepine addiction to patients in OMT.

We will conduct a systematic literature search in electronic databases. Two reviewers will independently screen titles and abstracts to assess whether they meet our inclusion criteria. We will obtain references that we consider potentially relevant in full text, and we will then make a final assessment of which studies to include. We will extract and analyze data from the selected studies and evaluate each study’s risk of bias.

We will also rate our confidence in the results by assessing the certainty of the overall evidence by using the GRADE approach (Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation).

Finally, we will present the included studies and overall results in a report.