Mortality of intravenous drug users: attenders of the Wellington Drug Clinic, 1972‐89

Abstract

A mortality study of 997 patients registered for treatment at the Wellington Drug Clinic since 1971 was undertaken by examining the New Zealand death records. Sixty-seven known deaths were reported. The mortality rates were increased 11.5 times under the age of 25 years, and 5.8 times for age 25-34 years, but not significantly thereafter. There were 7 deaths from trauma, 8 from suicide, and 28 accidental deaths. Myocarditis was the cause of death in four cases. In the 28 drug-related deaths the principle drugs incriminated were dextropropoxyphene, barbiturates, chloral hydrate, methadone and other opiates. Twenty-one deaths were due to unrelated diseases. It was considered important to document mortality in intravenous drug users in the 'pre-HIV' era. This study demonstrates quite low death rates from opioid drugs themselves.

Trends in opiate and opioid poisonings in addicts in north‐east Paris and suburbs, 1995–99

“…Heroin addiction remains a major concern throughout the world and the number of deaths among heroin addicts, although difficult to assess, may have risen in a number of countries over the past decade (Dukes, Robinson & Robinson 1992; Battista et al. 1993; Hammersley et al.…”

Is the Bipolar Spectrum the Psychopathological Substrate of Suicidality in Heroin Addicts?

“…Gender As in the case of suicidal behaviour in general, the prevalence of completed suicide has been shown to be significantly higher in male heroin users [1,5,8,13,[46][47][48] , while attempted suicide is higher in females [14][15][16][17][49][50][51][52][53] . Since suicidal thinking can be a proxy for both suicide and suicide attempts [19,25,26,54,55] , it is perhaps not surprising that we found no significant differences between males and females.…”

“…The latter do not necessarily predict death by suicide, yet their strong correlation with completed suicide [18,19,25,26] makes their investigation a priority in the clinical assessment of suicidal risk. Our study then aims to provide new information on: 1 The prevalence of suicidal ideation in heroin addicts who present for treatment of opioid addiction. 2 The degree of association of these thoughts with psychopathology, socio-demographic characteristics and drug addiction history.…”

What is the cost‐effectiveness of hepatitis C treatment for injecting drug users on methadone maintenance in New Zealand?

“…Age and gender specific mortality rates are taken from the NZ Life Tables 1995 -1997. The model uses rates of additional mortality among New Zealand IDUs that were found in a study of IDUs in Wellington [23]. Excess mortality rates ranged from 13.5 times expected mortality for women IDUs aged 15 -24 years, converging towards mortality for the general population in IDUs aged 45 years and over.…”