[Monitoring and evaluation of the Hungarian methadone maintenance programmes].

Introduction: Methadone maintenance has an important role in the treatment of injecting heroin users and the reduction of harm connected to drug abuse. In their study, the authors aimed to identify methadone maintenance and substitution programmes and service providers, addiction and psychosocial characteristics of clients, their satisfaction with the programmes and the realization of methadone maintenance "methodological letter" (guideline) issued by the Ministry of Health.

Methods: During the study all the eight outpatient centres providing methadone maintenance were involved as well as their clients and experts. The client sample was 150 clients according to the National Methadone Register: sampling according to the centre and national gender distribution. The expert sample consists of two-two experts from each centre. Sociodemographic characteristics, satisfaction and Treatment Demand Indicator (TDI) of the clients were investigated while experts were asked about the recommendations of the methodological letter. In case of 119 clients, the intake and current TDI-s were compared.

Results: clients are satisfied with the treatment; the treatment causes positive perceived changes in their life both in psychosocial and drug use characteristics. Recommendations of the methodological letters were not realized totally.

Conclusion: According the study, authors propose development of the methodological letter as well as detailed and exact definitions of the letter.