Studies have shown that survivors of cervical cancer often have trouble sleeping. But there isn’t a lot of data on hypnotics’ effectiveness. Researchers looked for indicators of long-term hypnotic usage to determine if women with cervical cancer are more likely to use the drug. This register-based cohort study monitored 4,264 women diagnosed with cervical cancer between 1997 and 2013 and 36,632 women who did not have cancer, until 2016. More than 3 prescriptions with no more than 3 months in between were considered prolonged usage of hypnotics. Females with early-stage and late-stage cervical cancer had their data analyzed independently using Cox proportional hazards regression models and multistate Markov models. First-time hypnotic usage was significantly higher among women with cervical cancer compared to those without cancer during the 1st year following diagnosis (HRlocalized 4.4, 95% CI 3.9-5.1; HRadvanced 8.9, 95% CI 7.5-10.6), and this trend persisted for at least 5 years. Long-term hypnotic usage was significantly higher among women with cervical cancer than among women without cancer 1 year following diagnosis, with rates ranging from 1.4% to 4.7% higher depending on disease stage and age. Increased age, lower levels of education, prior use of antidepressants or anxiolytics, and more severe disease all increased the likelihood that hypnotics would be used for an extended period of time. A higher proportion of women with cervical cancer also report using hypnotics for extended periods of time. Although most patients begin hypnotic medication within the first year following a cancer diagnosis, the rate of initial use continues to rise for up to 5 years after diagnosis.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090825822003304
