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By Tom Brett
The General Practice and Primary Health Care Research Unit at The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle has published a new paper: ‘Multimorbidity in patients enrolled in a community-based methadone maintenance programme delivered through primary care’ (1). The study is a retrospective cohort study using electronic medical record review of patients attending a primary care-based methadone maintenance clinic in Western Australia. The clinic itself is part of a much larger medical centre that offers comprehensive primary health care. Multimorbidity in the methadone cohort was consistently higher across all age groups and contrasted with the comparator group where multimorbidity was positively correlated with age. We found the traditional S-shaped distribution curve of multimorbidity from mainstream practice was replaced by a consistently elevated plateau distribution among the methadone cohort. Our findings suggest challenging implications for the design and delivery of health care services to this population. Diane Arnold-Reed is lead author.
1-Multimorbidity in patients enrolled in a community-based methadone maintenance programme delivered through primary care. Journal of Comorbidity 2014; 4: 46-54. Doi: 10.15256/joc.2014.4.42