Authors

• Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

Keywords

drug abuse, health services, social problems, social services, substance use

Abstract

The survey charted substance use related cases in social and health services on the second Tuesday of October in 2015. Professionals in social and health services recorded information on every client or patient who used the services on that day while intoxicated or because of some harm, such as an injury, relating to substance use, or were assessed by an employee to be a substance abuser. In 2015, information was collected from prisons and community sanctions offices in addition to social welfare and health care facilities.

First, the substances the client had used in the past 12 months (e.g. alcohol, cannabis, cocaine), their simultaneous polydrug use (the simultaneous or concurrent use of two or more substances within a short time period) and whether they had ever during their life injected drugs were charted. The primary reason for using social and health services (e.g. injury, withdrawal symptoms, substance abuse problems) and the services provided to the client (e.g. helping with life management problems, intervention, detoxication) were surveyed. The occurrence of threatening or violent behaviour by the client in the facility was also examined, and mental health problems unrelated to substance use as well as gambling problems were charted.

Next, the questionnaire contained some questions directed only at either outpatient care clients (questions 21-23) or inpatient care clients (question 24). The questions concerning outpatient care clients focused on, for example, whether they had made an appointment beforehand and the time used on the services provided to them. The question concerning inpatient care (overnight care) clients examined the length of the client's continuous treatment at the time of data collection (e.g. 1-3 days, over a month, 6-12 months).

Background variables included the language and collection mode of the questionnaire, mode of data entry, location and region (NUTS3) of the facility and type of the facility as well as the client's gender, location and region (NUTS3) of residence, marital status, age group, economic activity and occupational status, housing tenure and whether they had children under 18 years of age.