Tasmania

In 2018–19, 26 publicly funded alcohol and other drug treatment agencies in Tasmania provided 3,856 closed treatment episodes to 2,791 clients (Tables SA.1 and SCR.21).

The visualisation shows that 3,856 closed treatment episodes were provided to an estimated 2,791 clients in Tasmania in 2018–19. This equates to a rate of 820 episodes and 594 clients per 100,000 population, a lower rate than the 1,000 episodes and 623 clients per 100,000 population reported nationally.

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In 2018–19, most (84%) clients in Tasmania attended 1 agency, and received an average of 1.4 closed treatment episodes, which is slightly lower than national average of 1.6 episodes (Tables SCR.21 and SCR.23).

Client demographics

In 2018–19:

  • Most (92%) clients in Tasmania received treatment for their own alcohol or drug use, of which, most (63%) were male (Figure 21; Table SC Tas.1)
  • clients receiving treatment for someone else’s alcohol or drug use were more likely to be female (74%)
  • over half (51%) of clients were aged 20–39 years (Table SC TAS.2)
  • over 1 in 10 (12%) clients identified as Indigenous Australians, which is lower than the national proportion (17%) (Tables SC TAS.3 and SC.4)
  • the majority (89%) of clients were born in Australia and nearly all (96%) reported English as their preferred language (Tables SC TAS.21 and SC TAS.22).

The visualisation includes a series of horizontal bar graphs showing that, in 2018–19, over 9 in 10 (92%) clients in Tasmania received treatment for their own drug use. Of these clients, over two-thirds (67%) were male, 54% were aged 20–39, and 12% were Indigenous Australians. Nearly all clients (96%) listed English as their preferred language and most (89%) were born in Australia.

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Patterns of service use:

In Tasmania, of the 2,791 clients who received treatment in 2018–19:

  • 59% (1,656) received treatment in 2018–19 only
  • 12% (328) received treatment in both 2017–18 and 2018–19
  • 3.4% (95) received treatment in each year from 2016–17 to 2018–19
  • 2.2% (60) received treatment in each year from 2015–16 to 2018–19
  • 1.9% (54) received treatment in all years, from 2014–15 to 2018–19.

Over the period 2014–15 to 2018–19, 9,949 clients received treatment in Tasmania. Of those:

  • 76% (7,533) received treatment in only a single year
  • 16% (1,631) received treatment in any 2 of the 5 years
  • 5.4% (541) received treatment in any 3 of the 5 years
  • 1.9% (190) received treatment in any 4 of the 5 years
  • 0.5% (54) received treatment in all 5 collection years.

Drugs of concern

In 2018–19, for clients in Tasmania receiving treatment episodes for their own alcohol or drug use:

  • alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern for clients (41% of episodes) (Figure 22; Table SE TAS.10).
  • amphetamines as a principal drug of concern accounted for one-quarter of episodes (26%), followed by cannabis (18%), and morphine (2.6%); where amphetamines were the principal drug of concern, the most common method of use was injecting, followed by smoking (19%) and ingesting (16%)
  • within the amphetamines code group, methamphetamine was reported as a principal drug of concern in almost 9 in 10 (91%) treatment episodes; in over half of treatment episodes (53%) where methamphetamine was a principal drug of concern, injecting was the most common method of use, followed by smoking (33%) (Figure 22b).

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 2018–19, when the client reported additional drugs of concern:

  • cannabis was the most common additional drug of concern (19% of episodes), followed by amphetamines (10%), alcohol (7%), and nicotine (6%) (Table SE TAS.11).

Over the period 2014–15 to 2018–19:

  • alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern for clients, slightly increasing from 40% to 41% in 2017–18, remaining stable in 2018–19 (41%) (Table SE TAS.10)
  • amphetamines replaced cannabis as the second most common principal drug of concern in 2016–17, increasing from 18% to 26% over the period
  • cannabis decreased from 29% to 18%
  • within the amphetamines code group, methamphetamine was reported as the principal drug of concern in over half of episodes (55%) in 2014–15, rising to 65% in 2015–16, 78% in 2016–17, 86% in 2017–18 and 91% in 2018–19 (Figure 22a)
  • the proportion of closed treatment episodes with morphine as a principal drug of concern has consistently been higher than the national proportions, ranging from 4 times higher in 2015–16 to 7 times higher in 2017–18, with the proportion decreasing to 5 times higher than the national proportion in 2018–19 (Table SD.2).

The grouped horizontal bar chart shows that, in 2018–19, alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern in treatment episodes provided to clients in Tasmania for their own drug use (41%). This was followed by amphetamines (26%), cannabis (18%), and other analgesics (4.1%). Cannabis was the most common additional drug of concern (19% of episodes), followed by amphetamines (10%), alcohol (6.8%), and nicotine (6.2%).

 

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The line graph shows that, between 2014–15 and 2018–19, methamphetamine has remained the most common drug of concern among meth/amphetamine-related treatment episodes for clients’ own use. The proportion of methamphetamine-related episodes increased from 55% in 2014–15 to 91% in 2018–19. Conversely, there was a decrease in the proportion of episodes relating to amphetamines (from 44% to 8.0%).

The stacked horizontal bar chart shows the method of use for treatment episodes related to clients’ own use of meth/amphetamines in Tasmania in 2018–19. Injecting was the most common method of use for treatment episodes relating to amphetamine (52%), methamphetamine (53%), and other amphetamines (50%). Smoking was the second most common method of use for methamphetamine (33%) and amphetamine (19%), while this was ingesting (25%) for other amphetamines. For amphetamines not further defined, injecting (33%) was the second most common method of use after ‘not stated’ (67%).

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Treatment

In 2018–19, the majority of closed episodes for all clients in Tasmania, included:

  • counselling as the most common main treatment (48% of episodes), followed by assessment only (24%), and rehabilitation (18%) (Figure 23; Table SE TAS. 20)
  • where an additional treatment was provided as a supplementary to the main treatment, counselling (5%) was the most common type of additional treatment, followed by rehabilitation (1%).

Over the period 2014–15 to 2018–19:

  • counselling remained the most common main treatment, despite the proportion of closed episodes rising from 43% in 2014–15 to 48% in 2018–19
  • assessment only decreased from 32% in 2014–15 to 24% in 2018–19
  • rehabilitation increased, climbing from 11% in 2014–15 to 18% in 2018–19, the proportion of episodes for rehabilitation is higher than the national proportion (Table SE TAS.20)
  • the proportion of closed treatment episodes for counselling was lowest 2016–17 compared to the national proportion (37% in Tasmania compared with 40% nationally) (Tables SE TAS.20 and ST.2).

The grouped horizontal bar chart shows that, in 2018–19, the most common main treatment type provided to clients in Tasmania for their own drug use was counselling (48% of episodes). This was followed by assessment only (24%), rehabilitation (18%), and information and education only (3.5%). Counselling was also the most common additional treatment type (4.7%).

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Agencies

Tasmania only has the geographical classifications of Inner regional, Outer regional and Remote areas.

In 2018–19, in Tasmania:

  • around 7 in 10 (69%) AOD agencies were non-government treatment agencies that receive public funding
  • 62% of agencies were located in Inner regional areas, followed by Outer regional (38%) (Figure 24; Table SA.3)
  • agencies located in Inner regional and Outer regional areas, were more likely to be non-government organisations.

In the 5 years to 2018–19, the number of publicly funded treatment agencies in Tasmania rose from 19 to 26 (Table SA.1).

Note that remoteness categories are derived by applying a correspondence based on the agency’s Statistical Area level 2 code (SA2). Not all SA2 codes fit neatly within a single remoteness category, and a ratio is applied to reapportion each SA2 to the applicable remoteness categories. As a result, it is possible that the number of agencies in a particular remoteness category is not a whole number. After rounding, this can result in there being ‘<0.5%’ agencies in a remoteness area, due to the agency’s SA2 partially crossing into the remoteness area. See technical notes for further details.

The horizontal bar chart shows that Tasmania does not have any areas classified as Major cities or Very remote. Most treatment agencies were located in Inner regional (16 agencies) and Outer regional (10 agencies) areas, with no agencies located in Remote areas. Of the total 26 treatment agencies, most (18 agencies) were non-government agencies.

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