Health, Social and Economic Costs of Complex Treatment of Heroin Addiction

Abstract

The use of drugs is a significant health and social problem worldwide. It gets increasingly complicated due to the emerging new challenges that give rise to concerns about public health. Besides the controlled use for medical purposes, around 250 million, (5.7%) of the world population aged 15-64 years, use illegal drugs. The opioid addiction is a mental and behavior disorder with complex bio-psycho-social genesis and chronic recidivistic course. One of the treatment methods is the so-called medication-assisted treatment that is performed by use of opiate agonists (methadone, etc.). Practically, this treatment means administration of the relevant medicine products in combination with a wide range of medical and rehabilitation services to alleviate the adverse medical, psychological and physiological effects that are inherent of opioid addiction. It is presented a good practice of a treatment methadone program by describing the organization of the Methadone Treatment Program at the Mental Health Center of Varna. It is presented an assessment of the effectiveness of the Program and its dynamics over the years as an expression of the health, social and economic costs of complex treatment of heroin addiction