Phenobarbital for Alcohol Withdrawal

PLEASE NOTE:   Posts made to this forum should not be considered as the expressed opinions of, nor should be considered endorsed by, the Medication Safety Officer’s Society (MSOS) or the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP). 

Make sure your email is up-to-date
In order to continue to receive updates from MSOS, as well as forum posts and other valuable information as a member of MSOS, please be sure to update your email address with us, whenever it changes. If you need assistance doing so, please send an email to jgold@ismp.org

7 posts / 0 new
Last post
Erin Lynn
Erin Lynn's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 week 4 days ago
Joined: 08/25/2022 - 15:56
Phenobarbital for Alcohol Withdrawal

Would anyone be willing to share their protocol for using phenobarbital in alcohol withdrawal patients? Some of our doctors prefer it over lorazepam and we want to make sure we are monitoring for patient safety. They're ordering 130mg IV q1hr prn at the beginning and then transitioning to oral doses. There is some disagreement on the max dose (15mg/kg/day IBW vs 20-30mg/kg IBW per hospital stay). I'd love to see what some other facilities are doing. Thank you!!