Introduction:

Benzodiazepines (BDZ) are widely used to control symptoms in insomnia and anxiety disorders. In the geriatric population, the concerns related to these treatments are higher, and, in addition to the possibility of causing daytime sleepiness, there is also evidence of an association with the increased risk of falls, cognitive decline, and delirium. In this context, it is important to study and evaluate strategies for rational prescribing and deprescribing of BDZ, avoiding prolonged/chronic use whenever it is clinically unnecessary, as well as developing guidelines to manage these therapeutic interventions. Our primary objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of a compound intervention in the rational prescribing/deprescribing of BDZ in geriatric patients managed in primary health care.

Methods:

Randomized clinical trial involving two Family Health Units (FHU), attending to test the effectiveness of a compound intervention to improve BDZ prescribing in patients older than 65 years.

Conclusion:

After 9 months the chance of not having a prescription for BDZ is, on average, 1,004 times higher (about 0.4%) in the FHU where there was an intervention than in the control, demonstrating that the intervention can be useful. We believe that other studies, methodologically optimized, may be an important contribution to help solve this problem.

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