RT Journal
A1 Newman RG
T1 INsufficient information in drug-related hospital morbidity study
JF Archives of General Psychiatry
JO Archives of General Psychiatry
YR 2009
FD March 1
VO 66
IS 3
SP 331
OP 332
DO 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2008.549
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2008.549
AB 
For methadone treatment, there is reference to “statewide annual report estimates” of retention for inpatient methadone maintenance treatment (could there really be such programs in Australia?) and for outpatient services. However, based on those statewide figures, without even a time frame as to duration of retention, one cannot venture a guess as to how many of the 522 individuals starting methadone treatment and included in this analysis remained in treatment for a few days or conceivably for the entire 3½-year observation period after enrollment. In any event, the reader also has no way of ascertaining the intervals between “hospital morbidity” and the last administration of methadone; here, too, it might have been a day or more than 3 years.