ويژگيهاي معتادين مراجعه كننده به مراكز خود معرف شهر اردبيل

Characteristics of self introduced addicts in Ardebil

Objective(s): To study characteristics and opium use pattern in patients attended to Ardabil addiction treatment center. Methods: In this retrospective and descriptive analytic study the characteristics of the self-introduced addicts attended to Ardabil admission and treatment office of the welfare organization were studied using their records (n=384). Results: 97.8% of the clients were male with mean age of 38.4 years old and 86.9% were married with average of 4 children. 85.3% of the samples were smoker and 10.7% of the cases had the history of opium consumption in their first-degree family members. The mean age of starting drug abuse was 28.8 and the average time between addiction and attending for giving up was 8 years. 37.9% of the samples had 1-2 times history of abandonment of addiction; 3.6% of them had used syringe in common and 8% of them had committed other offences in addition to addiction. The consumed narcotics were opium (81.9%), heroin (9.9%), both opium and heroin (1.9%). The common ways of consumption were: fumigation (41.7%), eating (30.5%), injection (6.7%), and both eating and fumigation (21.1%). There was a significant relation between kind of consumed narcotics and age, consumption way and marital status (P<0.05). Conclusion: It is necessary to carry out similar epidemiological studies to understand precise status of addiction throughout the Ardabil province, its cities and townships.