Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2007 - Drug Misuse Information ...

Scottish Drug Misuse Database
Understanding the data
‘New’ patients/clients
The information presented relates to new patients/clients. The statistics do not reflect the total number of drug
misusers seen by services during any period.
New patient/client
Any person who, at the time of presenting, is not currently in contact with a service that provides
specialist assessment of a client’s drug misuse care needs.
Services & Treatment
The database neither collects information on the non-client work in which most specialist projects are involved
nor measures the number of contacts nor the amount of time spent with clients. The data are usually recorded
at or around the time of the initial assessment and so no measure of outcome is included.
Misuse of alcohol may be reported to the database but it should not be reported for clients presenting solely
with an alcohol problem.
Matching new patients/clients
By means of matching on certain criteria (initial of first name, initial & 4th character of surname, date of birth
and gender) an adjustment is made for the double counting of individuals who may have attended more than
one service during the period. The accuracy of these matches cannot be guaranteed. This is, however, the
most precise method of matching individuals given that full name and address is not provided to ISD. The
terms ”individuals” and ”attendees” refer to new patients/clients who have been through the matching
process.
Local area analysis and trends
Individuals have been included only once within each NHS board and council area of residence. However, they
may appear in more than one area and as a result the sums of the NHS board and council area data will not
equal the Scotland figure. Where data are presented at a national level individuals are counted only once in
any year. This is true for all tables except table B1.43, which presents statistics on all valid forms received.
Within Ayrshire & Arran NHS Board some agencies continued to collect data using the Ayrshire Common
Database based on the SMR24 form after the introduction of the SMR25a form in April 2006. As a result
information is unavailable from some agencies for certain questions that are specific to SMR25a.
Background notes on client confidentiality and small numbers
Maintaining patient confidentiality is a fundamental principle in ISD’s work. We take particular care when
providing tabular information which results in small numbers appearing in table cells. We are currently
reviewing our procedures with the objective of implementing the confidentiality guidance published by the
Office of National Statistics (ONS) in October 2006. In line with this review and to protect client confidentiality
when publishing sensitive data we have revised our protocol on the treatment of small numbers for this year’s
publication. The main points are as follows:
a) Client confidentiality.
■ Data tables are classified as sensitive either if the information within them is in itself sensitive, eg.
numbers of heroin injectors, or of it can be combined with data from other sensitive tables to obtain
information that might be used to disclose the identity of individuals, eg. age, sex.
■ If the data are sensitive and the total number of clients providing information is less than 40 and any
individual category has a frequency below 5 then all individual entries are replaced by ‘z’. If the total is
less than 5 then the total is replaced by ‘z’.
■ If the data are not sensitive and the total number of clients providing information is less than 40 and any
individual categories has a frequency below 5 then that entry is replaced by ‘z’. If the total is less than 5
then it is presented but all individual entries must be less than 5 and are replaced by ‘z’s.
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Drug Misuse Statistics Scotland 2007