Comparison of nitrazepam with triazolam in insomniac outpatients

Abstract

The short-acting hypnotic, triazolam 0.5 mg, was compared in a 7-day double-blind study with the longer acting drug, nitrazepam 5 mg. Of the 60 patients enrolled, 29 in each drug treatment group completed the study and were evaluated. All significant differences found favoured triazolam. On the first night, triazolam was found to be significantly more effective than nitrazepam in inducing and maintaining sleep and in increasing its overall duration. The patients' subjective preference, reflecting the depth of sleep experienced and the effect of the medication, reached highly significant levels in favour of triazolam. Later in the study the differences between the drugs disappeared although the depth of sleep as judged in the study was better with triazolam.

Triazolam as a hypnotic for geriatric patients

“…Two main metabolites also have short elimination half-lives and are probably of no clinical importance (11,12). In short-term studies of outpatients and inpatients, triazolam in doses of 0.25-0.50 mg has proved as effective as nitrazepam 5 mg, with about the same amount of side effects (9,13,14). Comparisons between nitrazepam and triazolam in young and middle-aged subjects have shown that triazolam causes less residual effects (6,15).…”

Respiratory and Sedative Effects of Triazolam in Volunteers

“…Since hypothermia would be an added complication to anaesthesia this aspect of the drug's activity was assessed at the same time. Since triazolam's hypnotic activity is well documented (Kales et al, 1977;Dahl et al, 1982) it was decided to use the opportunity presented by this study to compare a number of methods of assessing deficits in psychomotor skills and cognitive function.…”