Fig. 4

Forest plot summarizing the risk of all-cause mortality for antidepressant monotherapy and antidepressant+benzodiazepine concomitant therapy after stratifying for age, sex, type of benzodiazepines, and benzodiazepine discontinuation. Note: AD, antidepressants; aSD, absolute standardized difference; BZD, benzodiazepines. ^†Patients who received both short- and long-acting BZDs together with antidepressants on the index date were not considered for in this subgroup analysis as they were unable for classification. ^‡Sex-stratified analysis: all covariates remained balanced among females as all aSD values were < 0.1, whereas males showed imbalance in health insurance type (aSD 0.152) and residential district (aSD 0.143); age-stratified analysis: all covariates remained balanced among those < 65 years, while CCI (aSD 0.164) and history of NSAIDs use (aSD 0.115) were imbalanced among those ≥ 65 years; stratified for BZD type: all covariates remained balanced among those who received short-acting BZDs but showed imbalance in residential district (aSD 0.180) and CCI (aSD 0.147) among those who received long-acting BZDs; stratified for discontinuation of BZD: all covariates remained balanced among those who discontinued BZDs, while age (aSD 0.169), health insurance type (aSD 0.132), income level (aSD 0.120), and history of insomnia (aSD 0.107) showed imbalance among those who continued BZDs at 6 months after the index date. ^⁋P-for-interaction not estimated as subtype of BZDs was our exposure of interest