Refer to the Data tables for more information.
The true proportion of clients dosed with buprenorphine-naloxone or buprenorphine LAI (reported for the first time in 2020) may be higher than reported here. This is due to the coding of pharmacotherapy drug types in New South Wales, where clients receiving these treatments are recorded as receiving buprenorphine. Refer to Table S14 for more information.
Client characteristics
Client characteristics (including age, sex and prescriber type) can differ according to the type of dosing point site where clients receive treatment.
Information on client characteristics is assessed using unit record data. In 2021, unit record data were provided by all states and territories except Victoria and Queensland. The following sections on client age and sex are based on these data.
Age of clients: Consistent with previous years, pharmacies continued to treat an older client group than other dosing point site types, while correctional facilities treated a younger client group. On a snapshot day in 2021 (excluding data for Victoria and Queensland):
- Clients aged 50 and over were around 3 times as likely to dose at pharmacies compared to correctional facilities:
- 4 in 10 clients (41% or 6,601 clients) who dosed at pharmacies were aged 50 and over, making it the most common age group for this dosing point site type.
- Just 1 in 10 clients (10% or 333) at correctional facilities were aged 50 and over.
- Around 6 in 10 clients who dosed at correctional facilities were aged 30–39 (40% or 1,271) or under 30 years (22% or 706). Comparatively, over 2 in 10 clients of pharmacies were aged 30–39 (20% or 3,233 clients) or under 30 (4.9% or 787 clients).
- Around 3 in 10 clients who dosed at public clinics (33% or 1,909 clients), private clinics (36% or 943) or hospitals (35% or 200) were aged 40–49. This was the most common age group for each of these dosing point site types, with the proportion of clients in each age group following a similar pattern across these sites (Table S29).
Sex of clients: On a snapshot day in 2021, all dosing point site types from the selected states and territories treated more males than females. This is consistent with the overall proportion of males and females receiving pharmacotherapy treatment (excluding data for Victoria and Queensland). In 2021:
- The proportion of clients who were male ranged from 63% (10,190 clients) for pharmacies to 91% (2,906) for correctional facilities.
- The proportion of clients who were female ranged from 8.8% (282 clients) for correctional facilities to 37% (5,908) for pharmacies.
- Female clients were more likely to dose at pharmacies (58% of female clients, compared with 45% of male clients).
- Male clients were almost 5 times as likely as female clients to dose in correctional facilities (13% of male clients, compared with 2.8% of female clients) (Table S30).
Prescriber type: Information on prescriber type by dosing point site type is assessed using unit record data. In 2021, unit record data were provided by all states and territories except Victoria and Queensland. Based on these data, around 1 in 2 clients (49%) received pharmacotherapy at pharmacies in 2021. Across all dosing point site types from the selected states and territories, the most common prescriber type was private prescriber (52% of clients).
- Around 3 in 10 clients (33%) received pharmacotherapy at pharmacies from private prescribers.
- A further 3 in 10 clients received pharmacotherapy at either pharmacies from public prescribers or public clinics from public prescribers (each 16%) (Table S31).
Number of opioid pharmacotherapy clients per dosing point site
In 2021, pharmacotherapy dosing point sites dosed an average of 19 clients each.
On a snapshot day in 2021, dosing point sites dosed an average of 19 clients each nationally (excluding data for Queensland). This represents an increase from 2020 (17 clients per site), but a decline from 2011 (21 clients).
The number of clients per dosing point site varied by site type. On average:
- Private clinics (New South Wales only) had the highest number of clients per dosing point site (236 clients per site).
- Pharmacies dosed 15 clients per site (Figure DOSING2; Table S23).
- Correctional facilities dosed an average of 152 clients per site. However, this number is inflated as New South Wales and Western Australia each report all correctional dosing point sites as operating under 2 sites rather than counting individual correctional dosing point sites. This significantly increases the number of clients per site. On the snapshot day in 2021, New South Wales recorded only 1 site with clients receiving treatment. When data for New South Wales and Western Australia are excluded, correctional facilities dosed an average of 60 clients across the remaining jurisdictions that supplied data (Table S23).