Abstract
BACKGROUND: Gender inequality in mental health is a persistent challenge that requires innovative solutions for its resolution. Interventions in primary care can be useful in narrowing the gap in the consumption of psychotropic drugs. OBJECTIVE: This study proposes female empowerment as a non-medical alternative for facing women's daily lives, which are often pathologised, and aims to develop a group intervention in primary care that promotes female empowerment and reduces the use of benzodiazepines and Z-hypnotics (BDZ/ZH). METHODS: Co-creation is presented as a novel methodology for developing health interventions. Participatory workshops will be organised involving women who use BDZ/ZH and health professionals, including family doctors, primary care pharmacists, and nurses. These workshops will collectively identify the needs of participants and contribute to the design of the intervention, which will be developed as a nurse-led initiative. DISCUSSION: This methodology is essential for designing interventions that respond effectively to the particularities of women who use BDZ/ZH and is valuable in adapting to the actual clinical context of the health professionals involved in their care. CONCLUSION: Nurses' ongoing patient relationships, deep knowledge of individual life contexts, and expertise in health promotion and education make them especially suited to lead empowerment-based interventions. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: This study protocol outlines a co-creation process involving patients and healthcare professionals from diverse fields of primary care-pharmacists, family physicians and nurses-to collaboratively design an intervention aimed at empowering women as a strategy for discontinuing benzodiazepines (BDZ) and hypnotics. The goal is to leverage both the lived experiences of patients and the clinical expertise of healthcare providers to develop a tailored, effective intervention. In the future implementation of the intervention, nurses are expected to take a leading role. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: This manuscript outlines a protocol for a participatory process and, as such, it has not been registered as a clinical trial.