Fischer Jane Anne, Clavarino Alexandra Marie, Najman Jackob Moses
School of Pharmacy, Pharmacy Australia Centre for Excellence, The University of Queensland, Woolloongabba, Queensland, 4102, Australia.
Subst Abuse. 2012;6:13-21. doi: 10.4137/SART.S8561. Epub 2012 Mar 7.
Little is known about the proportion of the Australian population using alcohol or other drugs who may seek treatment. There is a need to have some additional estimates of population morbidity which reflect harms associated with use.
To determine Australian population rates of publicly funded community based specialised alcohol and other drug treatment and in-patient hospital care by those 'at risk', by drug type, sex and age.
The design is secondary data analysis of publicly available datasets. We use the latest available complete data on Australian general population incidence of alcohol, cannabis amphetamines and ecstasy use (2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey) and nationally collected administrative data on publicly funded specialised alcohol and other drug treatment services (2006-2007 Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Dataset) and public hospitals (2006-2007 National Hospital Morbidity Minimum Dataset) to calculate rates of drug treatment and in-patient hospital care per 1000 Australians. 'At risk' for alcohol is defined as being at risk of short term harm, as defined by the National Health and Medical Research Council (2001). 'At risk' for illicit drugs is defined as those exposed to potential harm through at least weekly use of cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy use.
Risky alcohol consumption followed by recent cannabis use appears to lead to most harm. Greater harm seems to be experienced by males rather than females. Younger adults (15-19 years) and older adults (40+ years) seem also to experience the highest rates of harm.
It is possible to derive population estimates of harms associated with licit and illicit drugs use. Treatment rates vary across drug type, gender and age. Alcohol and cannabis are the substances whose use leads to the greatest demand for services. Ecstasy appears to generate few presentations for treatment. Publicly available data can be used to estimate harms associated with the use of particular substances. Such estimates are best interpreted in the light of other ways of estimating harms.
对于可能寻求治疗的澳大利亚饮酒或使用其他药物的人口比例，人们了解甚少。需要对反映与使用相关危害的人群发病率进行一些额外估计。
按药物类型、性别和年龄，确定“有风险”人群接受公共资助的社区专业酒精和其他药物治疗以及住院治疗的澳大利亚人口比率。
本设计是对公开可用数据集的二次数据分析。我们使用澳大利亚普通人群酒精、大麻、安非他命和摇头丸使用发生率的最新完整数据（2007年国家毒品战略家庭调查）以及全国收集的关于公共资助的专业酒精和其他药物治疗服务（2006 - 2007年酒精和其他药物治疗服务国家最低数据集）和公立医院（2006 - 2007年国家医院发病率最低数据集）的行政数据，来计算每1000名澳大利亚人的药物治疗和住院治疗比率。酒精“有风险”的定义为存在国家卫生与医学研究委员会（2001年）所定义的短期危害风险。非法药物“有风险”的定义为那些通过至少每周使用大麻、安非他命和摇头丸而面临潜在危害的人。
危险饮酒之后是近期使用大麻似乎导致了大多数危害。男性似乎比女性遭受更大危害。年轻人（15 - 19岁）和老年人（40岁及以上）似乎也遭受最高比率的危害。
有可能得出与合法和非法药物使用相关危害的人群估计数。治疗比率因药物类型、性别和年龄而异。酒精和大麻是使用后导致服务需求最大的物质。摇头丸似乎很少有人寻求治疗。公开可用数据可用于估计与特定物质使用相关的危害。此类估计最好结合其他危害估计方法来解读。
