Demographic Features of Patients in Methadone Maintenance Treatment, Referred To Private Mmt Clinic, Sari-Iran (2009-2010)

Introduction: Addiction to opioids poses serious problems for communities, families, and individuals. Solutions sometimes seem uncertain, difficult, and controversial. Most of patients can not tolerate drug abstinence permanently and they continue to live through preparing and using drugs permanently if there is no method of maintenance treatment. Methadone Maintenance treatment (MMT) has become a major intervention in the care and treatment of drug dependence in many countries. Now MMT is used as a maintenance method in Sari and we decided to evaluate this method in addicted patients in private MMT clinic. Method and Materials: This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed from April 2009 to April 2010 in all patients who have been referred for treatment to the private MMT clinic during this year. The tools for searching were epidemiologic questionnaire, patients file and interview. Collected data was analyzed using the descriptive statistics. Results: Data collected from 200 patients were analyzed. Most patients (142 patients) were urban. 44 patients (22%) had finished high school and 36 (18%) had higher educations. 155 patients use opium. 85 patients have treatment history of their addiction in recent years. 38 (19%) subjects had suspicious sexual relations. 67 (33.5%) cases had depression and 68 (34%) ones had aggressive behavior on the basis of DSM-IV criterion. 66 patients (33%) had full-time jobs. Conclusion: This study shows the most common substance that use in Iran is still opium. And it uses in all range of ages. A large number of our patients had finished high school and higher education degrees. So it shows the importance of preventive strategies in society.