ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Drugs Outcomes Research and Policies
This article is part of the Research TopicEvidence for Assessing Drug Safety and Drug Use in Older People: Volume IIIView all 4 articles
Challenges of Benzodiazepine Deprescribing in Elderly Patients Attending Primary Health Care
Provisionally accepted
Marlon Silva Tinoco1*
Silvio José Elisei Carvalho Júnior1Aline Istefane de Camargos Ramos1Luciana Soares Rodrigues2
Mariana Linhares Pereira1
Andre Oliveira Baldoni1*- 1Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei, São João del Rei, Brazil
- 2Centro Universsitário de Formiga, Formiga - Minas Gerais, Brazil
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Benzodiazepine deprescribing in older adults is a complex process influenced by systemic, structural, cultural, and individual factors. This qualitative study examined the challenges faced by primary care professionals during the implementation of a supervised deprescribing protocol in a municipality in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Through thematic content analysis, based on Bardin's methodology and relevant theoretical frameworks for primary care, interviews with community health workers and nurses were analyzed to identify barriers related to structure, process, and outcomes. The main structural barriers included high physician turnover and lack of trust in healthcare professionals. Process-related problems involved failures in information flow and internal coordination. Challenges related to outcomes and patients included resistance due to prolonged use and fear of withdrawal symptoms, limited understanding of the dose reduction process, missed appointments, and lack of home support. These interconnected factors significantly compromised the effectiveness of the intervention. In summary, this study adds that, within the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), stable teams, protected time for medication review, network-based psychiatrists, and home-based logistics are prerequisites for effective deprescribing; without these governance conditions, isolated education and protocols tend to fail . These measures are essential to promote treatment adherence, ensure patient safety, and achieve sustainable results in health services that aim to implement deprescribing.
Keywords: Ageg, Benzodiazepines, Deprescribing, Primaryhealth care, qualitative research
Received: 20 Oct 2025; Accepted: 02 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tinoco, Carvalho Júnior, Ramos, Rodrigues, Pereira and Baldoni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Marlon Silva Tinoco
Andre Oliveira Baldoni
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