The EMPOWER randomized trial – Eliminating Medications Through Patient Ownership of End Results – tested a theory-based tool (the EMPOWER brochure) aimed at empowering older adults to act as drivers of safer prescribing practices. The brochures recommend equally or more effective therapeutic substitutes to medication and a step-wise tapering protocol. Reading the brochure on sedative-hypnotic use led to an increase in self-reported knowledge and drug-related risk perceptions, an increase in discussions with physicians and/or pharmacists about the information, and discontinued benzodiazepine use among chronic consumers of inappropriate benzodiazepines.
The EMPOWER benzodiazepine brochure can be downloaded here.
Lead: Dr. Cara Tannenbaum
Investigators: Dr. Sara Ahmed, Dr. Andrea Benedetti, Dr. Robyn Tamblyn, Université de Montréal
Contact: camille.gagnon@criugm.qc.ca
Funder (2014-2019): Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Publications:
- Tannenbaum C, Martin P, Tamblyn R, Benedetti A, Ahmed S. Reduction of inappropriate benzodiazepine prescriptions among older adults through direct patient education: the EMPOWER cluster randomized trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2014; 174(6):890-8
- Martin P, Ahmed S, Tamblyn R, Tannenbaum C. A drug education tool developed for older adults changes knowledge, beliefs and risk perceptions about inappropriate benzodiazepines in the elderly. Patient Educ Couns. 2013; 92(1):81-7
- Martin P, Tannenbaum C. Use of the EMPOWER brochure to deprescribe sedative-hypnotic drugs in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. BMC Geriatr. 2017 Jan 31;17(1):37.
- Martin P, Tannenbaum C. A realist evaluation of patients’ decisions to deprescribe in the EMPOWER trial. BMJ Open. 2017 May 4;7(4):e015959.
