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EMPOWER (Eliminating Medications Through Patient Ownership of End Results)

Also: EMPOWER brochure · You May Be at Risk

A mailed, plain-language booklet for older adults on long-term benzodiazepines that sets out their personal risks (falls, memory, crashes), uses a self-quiz to create doubt about the drug, and gives a stepwise taper schedule and non-drug sleep tips to take to a doctor or pharmacist. Since adapted by US health systems, the VA (EMPOWER-ED) and the Canadian Deprescribing Network.

Years
2010–2012
Country
Canada
Topic
Low value carePatient safetySleep
Asks people to
StopTalk to someone
Strategy
Self efficacy
Channel
Direct mailPoint of sale
Audience
Older adults
older adults on long-term benzodiazepines, their physicians and pharmacists (indirectly)

Evidence

ExperimentalPositive

Cluster RCT (303 users, 30 Quebec pharmacies): 27% stopped benzodiazepines at 6 months vs 5% of controls (NNT 4), plus 11% dose reduction; 62% raised the topic with a clinician. Worked equally in mild cognitive impairment. A non-randomised US replication at Cedars-Sinai found 26% vs 17% stopped by 9 months. In a 2024 New Brunswick head-to-head RCT, updated EMPOWER booklets did worse than Sleepwell (34.8% vs 46.6% stopped or cut dose).

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Université de Montréal / Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (Tannenbaum lab) Academic

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Sources

  1. Reduction of inappropriate benzodiazepine prescriptions among older adults through direct patient education: the EMPOWER cluster randomized trial evaluation · 2014 · DOI 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.949 · PMID 24733354
  2. A realist evaluation of patients' decisions to deprescribe in the EMPOWER trial evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-015959 · PMID 28473524
  3. Use of the EMPOWER brochure to deprescribe sedative-hypnotic drugs in older adults with mild cognitive impairment evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1186/s12877-017-0432-5 · PMID 28143413
  4. A drug education tool developed for older adults changes knowledge, beliefs and risk perceptions about inappropriate benzodiazepine prescriptions in the elderly evaluation · 2013 · DOI 10.1016/j.pec.2013.02.016 · PMID 23541509
  5. Implementation of an intervention aimed at deprescribing benzodiazepines in a large US healthcare system using patient education materials evaluation · 2024 · DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-080109 · PMID 38569687
  6. Adapting the EMPOWER Protocol to Promote Benzodiazepine Cessation Among US Military Veterans evaluation · 2022 · DOI 10.2196/35514 · PMID 36121697

Research notes

Created 2026-10-23 from the sleep campaign literature search (PubMed and web search; OpenAlex was unreachable), see docs/sleep-campaigns-literature.md. Findings are paraphrased from abstracts, not full texts; official URLs come from search results and were not opened. The 'You May Be at Risk' booklet title is how YAWNS NB names the updated EMPOWER booklet. Strong candidate for sleepliteracy.org (patient brochure with trial evidence). Funding source not checked.

Record cases/empower-benzodiazepine-brochure.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign