Use of Quetiapine as a Coadjuvant to Benzodiazepines in General Anxiety Disorder in Patients Aged Over 20 Years at Hospital Naval Guayaquil

Abstract

Abstract Generalized anxiety disorder is the most prevalent mental disorder worldwide. The use of quetiapine + benzodiazepines has been shown to reduce symptoms in patients with generalized anxiety disorder who do not respond adequately to the exclusive use of benzodiazepines. Despite the benefits shown in Ecuador, there are no published studies about its effectiveness. This is a prevalent, retrospective, cross-sectional, descriptive, and analytical study carried out at the Hospital Naval de Guayaquil, in patients aged over 20 years diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and had undergone treatment with quetiapine, benzodiazepines, or both during the years 2017–2020. The average age of diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder is 45.12 years. It prevails in married male patients diagnosed at 39.95 years. Benzodiazepine is the drug that produces clinical improvement in 38% of patients. However, it does not present great variation before quetiapine + benzodiazepine, which produced an improvement in 27% of patients. The treatment time according to the type of drug used is shorter with quetiapine, lasting 4.32 months. However, the Kruskal-Wallis test established that the treatment time is shorter using the combination of quetiapine as a coadjuvant to benzodiazepine with a significance of > 0.05. The improvement of the sleep disorder stood out with the use of benzodiazepine in 38.57%. The benzodiazepine produces clinical improvement in 38% and in turn improves the sleep disorder in 38.57%. The use of quetiapine as a coadjuvant to benzodiazepines decreases the treatment time.

Keywords

• ecuador, anxiety disorder, benzodiazepines, quetiapine.