Did you miss us? We're back for Season 2 of What's it Worth! Join your host, Dr. Diana Langworthy, and co-host Garrison (Griest) Avery (back at the end of his APPE year for some more EBP fun!), as they find out if phenobarbital is beating benzos in severe alcohol withdrawal!  CI-WAt all the fuss is about in season two as we PAWSS and reflect on where single-site retrospective results and clinical takeaways can meet!

Key Points

1. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is a complex process involving acute imbalances in excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters in the CNS that can predispose patients to potentially life threatening complications like seizure and alcohol withdrawal delirium.
2. Patients in vulnerable populations, like pregnant persons and imprisoned persons, represent a group that is often underrepresented in clinical trials - we discuss this from a retrospective and prospective angle.
3. The Poisson regression is used for analysis of count data while the Wilcoxan rank sum test is a nonparametric test that assumes unknown or not-normally distrubuted data.
4. Is phenobarbital back again for alcohol withdrawal syndrome? --> Tune in to find out!

References

1. [EPISODE TRIAL] D, Al-Hegelan M, Thompson J, Bronshteyn Y. Phenobarbital versus benzodiazepines in alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Neuropsychopharmacol Rep. 2023; 43: 532–541. https://doi.org/10.1002/npr2.12347
2. DiCenzo R. Clinical Pharmacist's Guide to Biostatistics and Literature Evaluation. ACCP. 2011. [Poisson and Wilcoxan information]
3. The ASAM Clinical Practice Guideline on Alcohol Withdrawal Management. American Society of Addiction Medicine, 2020. [Alcohol withdrawal management information, CIWA, PAWSS]
4. Weaver M, Jewell C, Tomlinson J. Phenobarbital for Treatment of Alcohol Withdrawal. Journal of Addictions Nursing 2009;20:1-5.

Contact Information

Podcast email: whatsitworthpodcast@gmail.com

Host Information

Dr. Diana R. Langworthy, PharmD, BCPS

Clinical Associate Professor, University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy

Clinical Pharmacist - Inpatient Internal Medicine, M Health Fairview East Bank Hospital

Co-Host Information

Garrison (Griest) Avery, Student Pharmacist, Class of 2024

University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy