[Heroin addiction--a new type of drug dependence in Slovakia (personal experience)]

The authors present their initial experience with patients reporting contact with heroin. For the authors this is a new type of dependence. They present a group of 33 patients (only two women), mean age 26 years, hospitalized at two psychiatric clinics in Bratislava. The majority of patients were single, and had only elementary education. Only in 10 patients the diagnosis of fully developed dependence on heroin confirmed, in 12 patients sign of dependence were lacking. The authors draw attention to the discrepancy between subjective data of the patients and objectively assessable signs of dependence. Most frequently heroin was inhaled, only in five patients i.v. administration of the drug was recorded. For treatment available psychopharmaceutical preparations were used (anxiolytics, neuroleptics). Opium administration was not necessary.