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Pharmacoepidemiological characterisation of zolpidem and zopiclone usage

  • Pharmacoepidemiology and Prescription
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Zolpidem and zopiclone are two widely used non-benzodiazepine hypnotics whose usage seems to be associated to pharmacodependence. However, to our knowledge, there has as yet been no published epidemiological study which has compared their abuse or dependence potential. We used a pharmacoepidemiological approach to identify and characterise zolpidem and zopiclone users in real life situations.

Methods

Regular users of zolpidem or zopiclone were identified in the database of a French regional health insurance organisation. A latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify different subgroups of users of these two hypnotics.

Results

The study cohort comprised 25,168 patients who regularly used zolpidem and 21,860 who regularly used zopiclone. The results of the latent class analysis, which enables subgroups with similar patterns of response to be identified, revealed four clinical subtypes of users of zolpidem: non-problematic users, users with associations with hypnotics/anxiolytics or with associated mental disorders, and problematic users. Only three subgroups were identified for zopiclone, and LCA did not discriminate a special class of problematic users for this drug.

Conclusion

Our analysis indicates that there is a subclass of zolpidem user suggestive of abuse; this was not the case for zopiclone. This methodology is very interesting because it allows analysis of databases and determination of a specific signature of drugs potentially leading to abuse or dependence.

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Conflict of interest

Pascale Jolliet declares consulting fees. Other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Center for Evaluation and Information on Pharmacodependence, Nantes University Hospital, Nantes, France

    Caroline Victorri-Vigneau, L. Wainstein & P. Jolliet

  2. EA4275 Biostatistics, Pharmacoepidemiology and Subjective Measures in Health Science, Nantes University, Nantes, France

    Caroline Victorri-Vigneau, F. Feuillet, L. Wainstein, M. Grall-Bronnec, V. Sébille & P. Jolliet

  3. Biometric Platform, Nantes University Hospital, Nantes, France

    F. Feuillet & V. Sébille

  4. Regional Department of Health Insurance Medical Service of Pays de la Loire, Nantes, France

    J. Pivette & A. Chaslerie

  5. Service de Pharmacologie Clinique, Institut de Biologie, 9, quai moncousu, 44093, Nantes cedex, France

    Caroline Victorri-Vigneau

Authors
  1. Caroline Victorri-Vigneau
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  2. F. Feuillet
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  3. L. Wainstein
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  4. M. Grall-Bronnec
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  7. V. Sébille
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  8. P. Jolliet
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Correspondence to Caroline Victorri-Vigneau.

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Victorri-Vigneau, C., Feuillet, F., Wainstein, L. et al. Pharmacoepidemiological characterisation of zolpidem and zopiclone usage. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 69, 1965–1972 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-013-1557-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-013-1557-x

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