Prescription of Benzodiazepines by General Practitioners: Characteristics of Prescribing Trend and Implementation of an Online Educational Program

New University of Lisbon

Status

Completed

Conditions

Prescription Drug Abuse and Dependency

Anxiety

Treatments

Behavioral: ePrimaPrescribe online educational program

Behavioral: ComunicaSaudeMental online educational program

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04925596

47/2016/CEFCM

Details and patient eligibility

About

Portugal has the highest benzodiazepine utilization compared to other European countries. The high utilization of benzodiazepines has been a concern due to reported side effects of long-term use and dependence. Also, these data demonstrate that doctors are possibly choosing an inadequate treatment to manage anxious and depressive syndromes.

This research aims to develop and implement in primary health care units an online educational program, following a cluster randomized study design; to study the impact of this educational program for changing general practitioner's benzodiazepine prescription pattern; to analyze of barriers and facilitators to the implementation of the e-PrimaPrescribe program.

Full description

BZD excessive prescription has long been considered a serious mental health concern in many countries. A large number of interventions using different methodologies have been implemented to change BZD prescription pattern at primary health care settings, with limited positive results.

The investigators propose the implementation of an effectiveness-implementation hybrid type 1 intervention. In the study it was developed an online platform, named ePrimaPrescribe, which was delivered using a Digital Behavior Change Intervention(DBCI).

The investigators included all primary health care units from one region in Portugal which were randomly allocated to receive a Digital Behavior Change Intervention (DBCI) in the format of an online platform to reduce BZD prescription (ePrimaPrescribe) or an online platform concerning communication techniques (control).

The investigators primarily aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Digital Behavior Change Intervention (DBCI) using as outcome measure the frequency of BZD prescriptions issued per month. Secondarily the investigators aimed to analyze the effect of ePrimaprescribe on antidepressant prescriptions, to study the effect of ePrimaprescribe on diagnosis definition associated with BZD and antidepressant prescription; to perform a cost analysis considering the monthly National Health Service spending with BZD co-payment. The investigators finally aim to analyze the implementation process using quantitative and qualitative methods.

Enrollment

110 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 70 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Primary care units using the Portuguese online prescription tool (created by the Portuguese Shared Services of the Ministry of Health and Finance - SPMS)

Exclusion criteria