Client treatment pathways
This section uses 2 types of analyses to better understand the treatment pathways among the longitudinal cohort of Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment National Minimum Data Set (AODTS NMDS) clients who received treatment for cannabis between 2013–14 and 2021–22, as described in ‘Cannabis treatment’. These analyses (trace explorer and process analysis) describe key characteristics of clients who received treatment for cannabis and the treatment episodes provided to them, focusing on source of referral for AOD treatment, principal drug of concern (PDOC), main treatment type, and reason for cessation for AOD treatment. Process analysis was not conducted for PDOC as there was a large number of combinations of PDOC.
What is process analysis?
The following section uses process analysis to describe the common treatment pathways for clients who received treatment for cannabis between 2013–14 and 2021–22, by key characteristics such as source of referral for AOD treatment, main treatment type, and reason for cessation for AOD treatment. The analysis includes all treatment episodes provided to these clients, including clients who received one episode and those who received multiple episodes over the study period (that is, 2013–14 to 2021–22). It describes the process starting from the first treatment episode for each client, including the characteristics of any subsequent episodes provided to clients on a given path. Note clients may have received treatment prior to 1 July 2013 or after 30 June 2022.
What is trace explorer analysis?
The following section uses traces to identify the 5 most common treatment pathways among clients who received treatment for cannabis between 2013–14 and 2021–22, by key characteristics of treatment pathways, including source of referral for AOD treatment, principal drug of concern, main treatment type, and reason for cessation of AOD treatment. The traces, for example for principal drug of concern, represent sequences of treatment episodes by principal drug of concern, in the order in which clients received treatment within the study period.
The proportions of clients who followed each sequence are ranked from 1 to 5, with 1 being the most common pathway (that is, more clients followed this sequence as opposed to any other sequence of episodes). The figure shows the 5 most common trace distributions, but the cumulative proportions can be vastly different within each cohort (for example, the ‘most common’ pathway may represent most clients, that is, >50% % of clients or a small proportion of clients, for example, only 4% of clients, depending on the cohort). This reflects the varying complexity of patterns within each cohort: the more patterns, the more trace distributions and therefore the potential for a smaller proportion of the total client pathways to be captured by the top 5 distributions.
Explore the key characteristics of treatment pathways, including source of referral for AOD treatment, principal drug of concern, main treatment type, and reason for cessation of AOD treatment.
AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) (2023) Alcohol and other drug treatment services in Australia annual report, AIHW, Australian Government, accessed 1 March 2024.