The impact on retention of expansion of an Australian public methadone program

Although rapid expansion of methadone programs has occurred in many countries, there are few studies of the impact on treatment success. The one public methadone maintenance program in Canberra was expanded from 85 places in 1991 to 350 places in late 1992. While this responded to a real need, it also led to a temporary increase in drop-outs. Retention was considerably improved in 1996 when clients began to be transferred from the public program to fee-for-service primary health care, but the improvement was also not sustained. In recent years, one-quarter to one-half of clients dropped out before stabilization. Multiple entries into treatment were common and overall retention was not affected by previous treatment episodes or length of time between episodes. Methadone programs should monitor retention as part of on-going evaluation and improvement of treatment policy.