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Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems: 1999, 01, 1 (pages: 1 - 8)

Treating Heroin Addicts i.e. 'Breaking through a Wall of Prejudices"

Maremmani I.

Summary: The medical, psychiatric, psychological and social manifestations of heroin addiction require more than an integrated intervention. To effectively treat addiction, rehabilitation and/or prevention is necessary but we must also treat the patients according to the phase of illness. In other words, it is often necessary to adapt the intervention to the clinical phase of illness, by trying to raise the programme “retention rate”. This condition is indispensable in the rehabilitative process. The nature of drug addiction will often make it necessary for patients to be contacted in the street, so that they can benefit from counselling and “harm reduction”. Finally, primary or secondary prevention cannot be separated from a global intervention philosophy.