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Methamphetamine use and emergency services in Australia: a scoping review

02 June 2017
Volume 9 · Issue 6

Abstract

Methamphetamine use in Australia has been the topic of considerable attention by the media, political parties and the general public in recent years. This occurrence, along with the need for ambulance services and personnel to be adequately prepared, warrant further research in this area. This scoping review aims to determine who is currently using methamphetamines, whether prevalence has changed over time, and the impact is this having on emergency ambulance services in Australia.

Key Findings:

users of methamphetamine in Australia are mostly male, aged late twenties to early thirties and born in Australia. They generally have low levels of education and high levels of unemployment, homelessness, and rates of dependence. Overall rates of methamphetamine usage has not changed, however the proportion of users taking stronger forms of the substance has increased dramatically leading to adverse health consequences and emergency service intervention.

Implications:

Methamphetamine use is a societal issue which has far reaching consequences impacting on individuals, families, communities and healthcare personnel.

Conclusion:

the related health issues and aggression associated with methamphetamine affected patients, coupled with the increasing hospital and ambulance utilisation by this population warrants more research being undertaken on this issue.

Methamphetamine use in Australia has attracted substantial attention from the media in recent years (Usher et al, 2015), with more than 100 newspaper articles on the issue published in 2014 alone (Lim et al, 2014). Methamphetamine, particularly in its purest form ‘ice’, has a high potential for harm with users often displaying erratic, sometimes violent behaviour leading to ambulance and/or police attendance (Fulde and Forster, 2015). Between 2012 and 2013, ambulance attendances related to methamphetamine use almost doubled from 592 to 1112 (Lloyd et al, 2014). However, it is likely that these figures do not capture all methamphetamine-related attendances, as emergency ambulance data collection may not include cases related to chronic drug use, only acute episodes (Lloyd et al, 2015). The prevalence and effects of this drug have led to it being labelled as an ‘Ice Epidemic’ by Australian media outlets, politicians and policy makers (Chalmers et al, 2016).

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