Prazosin Can Reduce Drinking in AUD Patients With Severe Withdrawal Symptoms

Prazosin is effective at reducing alcohol consumption in adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and severe withdrawal symptoms such as sweating, headache, and nausea, reports astudy inAJP in Advance.In a 12-week, randomized clinical trial of 112 treatment-seeking adults with AUD, those with severe withdrawal symptoms who took prazosin had half as many drinking days and only one-fifth the number of heavy drinking days as adults with severe withdrawal symptoms taking placebo. In contrast, there was no difference in drinking days between participants taking prazosin who were experiencing few or no symptoms of alcohol withdrawal and those taking placebo. “In parallel, we found that the higher the alcohol withdrawal symptom severity, the greater the benefit of prazosin in reducing anxiety, depressed mood, and alcohol craving over the course of the trial,” wrote Rajita Sinha, Ph.D., of Yale University School of Medicine and colleagues. “These fi ndings support the speculation that prazosin’s benefits may be mediated by its effects on the high craving, negative mood, and anxiety that are clinically observed in those with greater alcohol withdrawal symptom severity.”Sinha and colleagues randomized adults with AUD to receive either 16 mg/day prazosin or placebo along with weekly behavioral counseling sessions for 12 weeks. At baseline, the participants ’ withdrawal symptoms were assessed using the Clinical Institute Withdrawal Assessment for Alcohol–Revised. The par...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: alcohol alcohol use disorder AUD drinking withdrawal Source Type: research