Client demographics

In 2017–18:

  • nearly all (93%) clients in Victoria received treatment for their own drug use, of which, most (68%) were male (Figure 5; Table SC VIC.1)
  • clients who received treatment or support for someone else’s drug use were more likely to be female (59%)
  • the majority (56%) of clients were aged 20–39 years (Table SC VIC.2)
  • around 1 in 13 (8%) clients identified as Indigenous Australians, which is lower than the national rate (16%) (Tables SC VIC.3 and SC.4)
  • the majority (84%) of clients were born in Australia and nearly all (95%) reported English as their preferred language (Tables SC VIC.21 and SC VIC.22).

Patterns of service use:

In Victoria, of the 33,006 total clients who received treatment in 2017–18:

  • 51% (16,928) received treatment in 2017–18 only
  • 16% (5,148) received treatment in both 2016–17 and 2017–18
  • 7% (2,381) received treatment in each year from 2015–16 to 2017–18
  • 2.6% (863) received treatment in each year from 2014–15 to 2017–18
  • 3.3% (1,077) received treatment in all years, from 2013–14 to 2017–18.

Over the period 2013–14 to 2017–18, a total of 103,559 clients received treatment in Victoria. Of those clients:

  • 67% (69,784) received treatment in only a single year
  • 21% (21,551) received treatment in any 2 of the 5 years
  • 8% (8,088) received treatment in any 3 of the 5 years
  • 3.0% (3,059) received treatment in any 4 of the 5 years
  • 1.0% (1,077) received treatment in all 5 collection years.