Nursing homes in Tasmania are relying too heavily on sedatives, sometimes to control patients, an expert says.
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia researcher Juanita Westbury said Tasmanian nursing homes currently had about three times the usage rate of benzodiazepines compared with nursing homes in Sydney.
Nursing home and pharmaceutical guidelines promoted minimising sedation in nursing homes as an ideal, but Ms Westbury said research had shown these medications were being used "to control residents".
"It's part of nursing home culture," she said.
"It's got to do with education and a lack of staffing and a lack of resources.
"We know if residents have more one-on-one attention we wouldn't need as many sedatives."
Ms Westbury said sedated patients fell more and also became mentally confused more often.
"It's better to manage them through reducing the use of tea and coffee and giving hot, milky drinks rather than giving sleeping tablets," she said.
"It's important to try other strategies rather than move straight on to medications that help people sleep and sedate them."
Ms Westbury, a PhD student at the University of Tasmania School of Pharmacy, said the Tasmanian homes recognised the problem and were working to fix it.
Her work was based on a 2003 study by one of Australia's foremost psychogeriatrics experts, Professor John Snowden, which helped reduce sedative use in Sydney nursing homes.
Ms Westbury, who replicated Prof Snowden's study in Tasmania, presented her 2007 Reducing Use of Sedatives report to Prof Snowden in Hobart on Thursday night.
