Client demographics

In 2017–18:

  • nearly all (98%) clients in Queensland received treatment for their own drug use, of which most (68%) were male (Figure 9; Table SC QLD.1)
  • clients receiving treatment for someone else’s drug use were more likely to be female (68%)
  • just over half (52%) of clients were aged 20–39 years, and 18% were aged 10–19 years which is higher than the national rate (13%) (Table SC QLD.2)
  • about 1 in 6 (16%) clients identified as Indigenous Australians, which is consistent with the national rate (16%) (Tables SC QLD.3 and SC.4)
  • the majority (87%) of clients were born in Australia and nearly all (99%) reported English as their preferred language (Tables SC QLD.21 and SC QLD.22).

Patterns of service use:

In Queensland, of the 33,762 total clients who received treatment in 2017–18:

  • 65% (21,874) received treatment in 2017–18 only
  • 10% (3,240) received treatment in both 2016–17 and 2017–18
  • 3.2% (1,088) received treatment in each year from 2015–16 to 2017–18
  • 1.4% (480) received treatment in each year from 2014–15 to 2017–18
  • 1.1% (386) received treatment in all years, from 2013–14 to 2017–18.

Over the period 2013–14 to 2017–18, a total of 128,155 clients received treatment in Queensland. Of those:

  • 80% (102,224) received treatment in only a single year
  • 15% (18,608) received treatment in any 2 of the 5 years
  • 4.2% (5,336) received treatment in any 3 of the 5 years
  • 1.3% (1,601) received treatment in any 4 of the 5 years
  • 0.3% (386) received treatment in all 5 collection years.