Sex differences in US emergency department non-fatal visits for benzodiazepine poisonings in adolescents and young adults.

Abstract Background Benzodiazepine (BZD)-related overdose deaths have risen in the past decade and BZD misuse contributes to thousands of emergency department (ED) visits annually, with the highest rates in adolescents and young adults. Because there are gaps in understanding BZD poisoning in youth and whether differences occur by sex, we aimed to characterize BZD poisonings ED visits in young people by sex. Methods BZD poisoning visits were identified in the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample, among adolescents (12-17 years) and young adults (18-29 years). Stratified by sex and age, we described ED visits for BZD poisonings in 2016, including poisoning intent, concurrent substances involved, and co-occurring mental health disorder diagnoses. With logistic regression we examined the association between intent and concurrent substance. Results There were approximately 38,000 BZD poisoning ED visits by young people nationwide with annual population rates per 10,000 of 2.9=adolescents and 5.8=young adults. Depression was diagnosed in 40% of female and 23% of male BZD visits (p  Conclusions The high proportion of BZD poisonings that are intentional and include mental health disorder diagnoses, especially among young females, underscore the importance of ED mental health and suicide risk assessment with appropriate follow-up referral.