Characteristics of 6 included studies regarding benzodiazepine use and dementia.

SS, sample size; BZD, benzodiazepine; ICD-9, International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision; DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition; DSM-III-R, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition Revised.

^aAge refers to mean age of participants at baseline.

^bFollow-up refers to maximum follow-up length.

^cUsing data of different subsets of National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan

^dOriginal authors defined recent use and past use as first BZD claim <15 days and last BZD claim >15 days before index date, respectively. To keep homogenous with definitions of BZD use in other studies as much as possible, we redefined recent use and past use as first BZD claim <2 years and last BZD claim >2 years before index date, respectively. In this case, we pooled initial estimates to yield required estimates for “redefined" recent and past use through a random-effects model.

Characteristics of 6 included studies regarding benzodiazepine use and dementia.