Alcohol treatment in Australia: Client characteristics and patterns of service use, 2013–14 to 2022–23

This report examines the treatment patterns of subsets of clients based on their treatment intensity, where intensive treatment was conceptualised as treatment that took place across many episodes over a long period of time. This required the development of set criteria for classifying any given series of treatment episodes based on previous AIHW analysis (AIHW 2019, AIHW 2021, AIHW 2023).

From this goal, 2 broad criteria were developed:

1. treatment across multiple years
2. treatment across many episodes.

Each of these criteria required specific values to determine the treatment cohort. Before establishing these treatment criteria, episodes of treatment for another person’s alcohol and other drug (AOD) use were removed. The goal was specifically to examine people accessing treatment for their own AOD use, and the cohort of interest was people who had received AOD treatment over set periods of time.

Criteria 1: Treatment across multiple years

• To define treatment across multiple years, the smallest possible number of financial years over which treatment could be considered long-term was identified as a threshold.
• Treatment was considered long-term where a person has received treatment over 3 or more financial years (aligning with Collection years), with treatment episodes ending more than a year apart.
• Receiving treatment in 2 financial years or fewer was not considered sufficient, for example, a client could be counted in 2 separate financial years if they received 2 episodes in May and August of the same calendar year.

Criteria 2: Treatment across multiple episodes

• To define treatment across multiple episodes, the smallest possible number of episodes over which treatment could be considered long-term was identified as a threshold.
• Treatment was considered long-term where a client received 13 episodes or more. This threshold was selected as it captures the top quartile of episodes received per client.
• Note that this is an adjustment in the methodology used in previous AIHW treatment cohort analyses, due to the additional years included between 2013–14 and 2022–23 for this report (AIHW 2021, AIHW 2023).

Defining the treatment cohorts

• The criterion above was used to define the treatment cohorts in Table 1. Figure cohort definitions 1 illustrates examples of client pathways through treatment that would be assigned to each cohort.
• Clients were excluded from treatment intensity cohort analysis if they:
  • were referred from another AOD treatment service for their initial episode between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2014
  • received their first recorded closed treatment episode between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2023.
• These criteria ensure that the initial cohort received treatment for their own drug use and did not receive AOD treatment in the 12 months before 1 July 2013. They also ensured that there was enough time for clients to have received treatment in 3 or more financial years. However, it is important to note that clients may have received treatment before 1 July 2013, and/or continued to receive treatment beyond 30 June 2023. Services accessed in these periods are outside the scope of this report.

Figure cohort definitions 1: Examples of client pathways through specialist AOD treatment, by treatment intensity cohort, 2013–14 to 2022–23