Cohort study into methadone

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 59

Cohort study into methadone

NZPA-AAP Sydney The first 300 Australians to have receive methadone treatment for drug addiction have been urged to come forward and participate in an historic study. Dr Stella Dalton, who pioneered methadone treatment in Australia, wants to reach those treated between 1970 and 1979 for a follow-up study. But she was having trouble tracing many of them, presumably because they had resumed normal lives and did not want to be reminded of their past. Dr Dalton emphasised the study would be completely confidential and that her researchers would visit respondents wherever they wished to be interviewed.

Respondents would also be paid a $2O fee. The study came after follow ups at three and eight years which found about 15 per cent of patients had stopped using methadone and were doing well, she said. However, she believed this result was overoptimistic and that the next study would find a smaller proportion showed significant longterm benefits. Nevertheless, methadone remained the most successful and cost effective method of treating heroin addiction, she said. “Our previous research leads us to believe that no other therapy is as humane and cost effective as a daily drink of methadone syrup - and this belief has been confirmed by separate research in the United States,” she said.

Dr Dalton founded Wistaria House and is conducting the study on behalf of the Wayback Committee, a charitable organisation involved in rehabilitating drug addicts and alcoholics.