Alcohol treatment pathways
This section uses process analysis to better understand the treatment pathways of client cohorts using the longitudinal data set of Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment National Minimum Data Set (AODTS NMDS) for clients who received treatment for alcohol at any point between 2013–14 and 2022–23, as described in Clients and alcohol treatment.
Process analysis describes key characteristics of clients who received non-recurring, recurring or intensive treatment for alcohol only or alcohol and another principal drug of concern (PDOC) and the treatment episodes provided to them.
What is process analysis?
The following section uses process analysis, including trace explorer analysis, to describe the common treatment pathways for clients treated for alcohol between 2013–14 and 2022–23, by key characteristics such as, main treatment type and PDOC. The analysis includes all treatment episodes provided to these clients, including clients who received one episode and those who received multiple episodes between 2013–14 and 2022–23.
Process analysis examines all treatment characteristics each client received and describes the characteristics of any subsequent episodes provided to clients on a given path. For example, of all treatment episodes where the main treatment type was counselling, the likelihood that treatment was followed by a subsequent treatment episode for withdrawal management is reported.
A component of process analysis is trace explorer analysis which identifies the top 5 most common treatment pathways among clients who received treatment for alcohol at any point between 2013–14 and 2022–23 using key client characteristics, including PDOC, main treatment type, sex, age group and remoteness area. The traces, for example for PDOC, represent sequences of treatment episodes by PDOC, in the order in which clients received treatment between 2013–14 and 2022–23.
The proportions of clients who followed each sequence are ranked from 1 to 5, with 1 being the most common pathway (that is, more clients followed this sequence as opposed to any other sequence of episodes). The trace figures in the Non-recurring, Recurring and Intensive treatment cohorts for alcohol show the 5 most common trace distributions, but the cumulative proportions can be vastly different within each cohort. For example, the ‘most common’ pathway may represent most clients (that is, >50% of clients) or a small proportion of clients (for example, only 4% of clients) depending on the cohort. This reflects the varying complexity of patterns within each cohort: the more patterns, the more trace distributions and therefore the potential for a smaller proportion of the total client pathways to be captured by the top 5 distributions.
Note clients may also have received treatment prior to 1 July 2013 or after 30 June 2023.
Explore the key cohort characteristics of treatment pathways for alcohol only and alcohol and another principal drug of concern: