Table 4.

Beliefs that contribute to continued co-prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines

	Primary Care, %				Mental Health, %
	n	Never/Rarely	Sometimes	Always/Often	n	Never/Rarely	Sometimes	Always/Often
Opioids and benzodiazepines are co-prescribed because:
Benefits of opioids and benzodiazepines exceed risks	51	29.4	49.0	21.6	31	16.1	41.9	41.9
Difficult to say no to patients who expect them	51	45.1	23.5	31.4	31	25.8	29.0	45.2
Not enough time to negotiate discontinuation or tapering with patients who expect them	52	26.9	23.1	50.0	31	22.6	29.0	48.4
No treatment alternatives exist	52	40.8	25.0	26.9	31	38.7	45.2	16.1
Risk of particular patient abusing these medications is low	52	32.7	51.9	15.4	30	30.0	46.7	23.3
Patient is stable on medication with no adverse effects	51	9.8	47.1	43.1	28	3.6	46.4	50.0
Lack information on how to taper these medications	52	26.0	44.0	30.0	30	34.5	31.0	34.5
Lack information on medication alternatives to these medications	52	32.7	38.5	28.9	30	30.0	46.7	23.3
Lack information on behavioral alternatives to these medications	50	26.9	30.8	42.3	29	23.3	40.0	36.7
Discontinuing or tapering these medications will:
Cause patients to suffer*	52	23.1	50.0	26.9	31	9.7	34.5	54.8
Be too difficult	53	20.8	32.1	47.2	31	12.9	25.8	61.3
Cause patients to obtain illicit drugs.	52	51.9	38.5	9.6	31	51.6	38.7	9.7
When these medications are prescribed by different prescribers:
It is too difficult to coordinate a plan to taper/discontinue one or both of these medications with the other prescriber	53	20.8	45.3	34.0	31	9.7	45.2	45.2
The prescribers disagree about which medication should be tapered/discontinued.	51	27.5	56.9	15.7	31	32.3	51.6	16.1

^*P<0.05