A large health-system study found that prior use was the strongest predictor of wartime benzodiazepine purchasing. That result distinguishes continuation of treatment from a new treatment response to conflict.
Marom and colleagues analyzed 557,830 adults in the Meuhedet health system, using two prewar years and the first year of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. The analysis compared prior users and nonusers and examined demographic and geographic characteristics.
Previous benzodiazepine use had a very large association with wartime use. Residence near combat areas and female sex also had associations, but of much smaller magnitude. The authors interpreted the prior-use result principally as continuation or renewal of existing treatment.
The study did not find an increase in treatment initiation when its wartime period was compared with the preceding two years. That does not contradict every report of an early prescription surge: a first-week change and an annual initiation measure are different outcomes.
Dispensing did not demonstrate ingestion, adherence, or the full psychological burden. Geographic categories could also miss heavily affected people living farther from combat, and the analysis did not measure all non-drug care.
A prescription increase should be described with its denominator, time window, and definition of new use. These records cannot establish that an individual consumed medication during an event or that residence alone caused a treatment change.
Original analysis of the supplied journal article, identified as PMC13224401.