Patterns of service use
Over the period 2015–16 to 2019–20, 111,525 clients received treatment in Victoria. Of these clients:
- the majority received treatment in a single year (65%)
- 17% (19,305) received treatment for the first time in 2019–20
- a further 48% (53,831) received treatment in only one of the four collection periods (excluding 2019–20)
- 22% (23,994) of clients received treatment in any 2 of the 5 years
- 8.3% (9,269) of clients received treatment in any 3 of the 5 years
- 3.3% (3,732) of clients received treatment in any 4 of the 5 years
- 1.2% (1,394) of clients received treatment in all 5 collection years (Table SCR.28).
In 2019–20, for clients in Victoria receiving treatment episodes for their own alcohol or drug use:
- Amphetamines were the most common principal drug of concern (29% of treatment episodes) (Figure 6; Table SE VIC.10)
- alcohol was also a common principal drug of concern, accounting for 28% of treatment episodes, followed by cannabis (16%), and heroin (5%)
- within the amphetamines group:
- methamphetamine was reported as a principal drug of concern in 3 in 5 (60%) of treatment episodes (Figure 6a)
- smoking was the most common method of use in 62% of episodes where methamphetamine was the principal drug of concern (Figure 6b).
Victoria is working with service providers to encourage more specific reporting of amphetamine use (i.e. to reduce the use of ‘amphetamines not further defined’ code where possible).
Victoria reported comparatively high incidences of ‘Not stated drugs’ (15%) as the drug of concern. This is in part due to service providers adjusting to changes in reporting practices associated with the implementation of a new data collection system in 2019–20. Victoria is working with service providers to encourage more specific reporting of drug of concern.
Clients can nominate up to 5 additional drugs of concern; these drugs are not necessarily the subject of any treatment within the episode (see Technical notes).
In 2019–20, when the client reported additional drugs of concern:
- cannabis was the most common (23% of episodes), followed by nicotine (22%), alcohol (19%), and amphetamines (12%) (Table SE VIC.11).
Over the period 2015–16 to 2019–20:
- amphetamines replaced alcohol as the most common principal drug of concern for clients (Table SE VIC.10), increasing over time from 22% in 2015–16 to 29% in 2019–20
- alcohol was the second most common principal drug of concern. The proportion of episodes with a principal drug of concern for alcohol decreased from 30% to 28% over this period
- within the amphetamines group, methamphetamine was reported as the principal drug of concern in less than 5% of episodes (3.5%) in 2015–16, before a large increase to 43% in 2018–19 and 60% in 2019–20 (Figure 6a). The rise in episodes for methamphetamine is mainly due to improvements in agency coding practices for methamphetamines, although some of the increase in episodes could be related to increases in funded treatment services.
- the proportion of closed treatment episodes for cannabis has stayed relatively stable, increasing from 17% in 2015–16 to 20% in 2017–18 before dropping to 16% in 2019–20 (Figure 6).