Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Acute psychotic illness, especially when associated with agitated or violent behaviour, can require urgent pharmacological tranquillisation or sedation.
In several countries, clinicians often use benzodiazepines either alone or in combination with antipsychotics for this outcome. We searched the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's register January , 20 August and 3 August , inspected reference lists of included and excluded studies, and contacted authors of relevant studies. We included all randomised controlled trials RCTs comparing benzodiazepines alone or in combination with any antipsychotics, versus antipsychotics alone or in combination with any other antipsychotics, benzodiazepines or antihistamines, for people who were aggressive or agitated due to psychosis.
We reliably selected studies, quality assessed them and extracted data. For continuous outcomes, we calculated the mean difference MD between groups.
Twenty trials including participants are now included in the review. The trials compared benzodiazepines or benzodiazepines plus an antipsychotic with placebo, antipsychotics, antihistamines, or a combination of these. There was no clear effect for most outcomes. One trial compared benzodiazepines with placebo. There was no difference in the number of participants sedated at 24 hours very low quality evidence.
Benzodiazepines versus antipsychotics. Data comparing benzodiazepines plus antipsychotics versus benzodiazepines alone did not yield any results with clear differences; all were very low quality evidence. The evidence from RCTs for the use of benzodiazepines alone is not good. There were relatively few good data. Most trials were too small to highlight differences in either positive or negative effects.
