Explain how to reduce the prescribing of benzodiazepines in general practice

1- start with hypnotics what drugs + use of these drugs (test both benzo and non benzodiazepine using BNF etc. 2- identified issues with hypnotics, withdrawal, etc.(BNF also published papers) then 3- criteria for better prescribing of drugs (specific guidelines e.g. NICE and also BEERS,STOPP/START etc.,and general literature for better prescribing 4- recommendations about hypnotics (NICE,BEERS,STOPP/START, prescribing rates for hypnotics 5- problems with changing prescribing behaviour (papers about inappropriate prescribing and in use of hypnotics, has anyone tried to change prescribing of hypnotics? what methods? and what challenges? 6- focus of project: changing hypnotic prescribing, barriers and potential solutions.

Firstly:
look in detail at these systematic reviews that have looked at interventions to reduce the prescribing of benzodiazepines in general practice / in the elderly. Also, of course please look for additional relevant reviews by conducting a search (e.g. looking at interventions for reducing the prescribing of Z-drugs):

http://bjgp.org/content/61/590/e573

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/bjprcpsych/204/2/98.full.pdf

What are the interventions that work? What are the interventions that don’t work?

Following on:

There seem to be a lot of published papers on GPs views about the prescribing of BZD and Z-drugs in general practice (almost too many!). No doubt these would have looked at barriers and challenges that GPs face. Therefore, what would be the value of contributing to this work?

See for example:

http://bjgp.org/content/56/533/964

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953605003886

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2753.2009.01186.x/full

Please have a look at the above studies and similar ones to see if you can identify a gap in the literature….

My own approach here would be to see if the studies are grouped as those that look at GP opinions on the prescribing of BZD versus Z-drugs (might not be the case as they could be asking about the prescribing of all hypnotics in the interviews but worth checking). Then, I would look to see if anyone has carried out a systematic review of the qualitative studies that have examined GP perceptions about starting, continuing and discontinuing hypnotics.

There are papers available that describe the different types of qualitative systematic reviews you can conduct:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/9/59