SAMHSA Releases New Data on Drug-related Hospital Emergency Department Visits
Source: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

The latest Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) report – drawn from a sample of hospital emergency departments across the Nation – indicates that more than 1.7 million visits for treatment were associated with some form of substance misuse or abuse. The 2006 DAWN report, developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provides the latest estimates on how substance use affects this critical part of the Nation’s healthcare system.

Among the report’s more notable findings:

• Cocaine was involved in 548,608 emergency department visits.
• Marijuana was involved in 290,563 emergency department visits.
• Heroin was involved in 189,780 emergency department visits.
• There were 126,704 emergency department visits by patients under age 21 where alcohol was the only substance involved in the visit.
• Stimulants, including amphetamines and methamphetamines, were involved in 107,575 emergency department visits.

The DAWN report provides a great deal of other detailed information on how problems with a wide range of other substances contribute to hospital emergency department visits. These substance problems include the use of other illicit drugs as well as the non-medical use of prescription medications and over-the-counter drugs.

The report also provides statistical breakdowns on drug-related hospital emergency department visits by key demographic groups and other factors.

+ Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2006: National Estimates of Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits (in HTML or PDF)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Health and healthcare, Mental health and substance abuse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.