**4. Results and discussions**

substitution treatment). The study was approved by the Ethical Committees of the Centre and

The study group was characterized in detail, taking into account demographic, comorbid and addiction characteristics, heroin use history, treatment history, and clinical and paraclinical

Indicators/parameters to be followed: age; sex; occupation; comorbidity; the history of heroin consumption (detailed as follows: recognized consumption age, intravenous heroin consumption starting age, way of heroin administration, other tested/consumed drugs); history of treatment (previous abstinence periods, previous hospitalizations, previous treatments, when starting treatment with methadone, which is currently under, psychological counseling; methadone dose); and toxicological analytic screening aiming at both diagnosing the drug consumption as well as checking and confirming the abstinence along the period of

During the hospitalization, the psychological investigation of the patients was made. The description of the mental state, together with monitoring the behavior during the psychological interview, aim at filling in the examination file and applying efficiency and personality

Qualitative analytical screening and quantitative assays refers to the immunofluorescence method for the quantitative determination of heroin and their metabolites in urine [19]; it is based on a technique of fluorescence polarization immunoassay using an automatic drug analyzer version TDxFLx (Abbott Laboratories). The results can be expressed either in qualitative (presence or absence of opiates) or quantitative (sample concentration in ng/mL) terms. Detection threshold (cut-off) was established at 200 ng/mL (this being the most widely accepted value). Measurements obtained are used for the diagnosis of heroin use and for

To achieve the study, we have used individual medical files, and, for instruments of interpreting data, we have used a series of statistic applications including both the descriptive methods and the analytic ones; the data are centralized in the database EXCEL and SPSS and processed with the available statistic functions, compatible and adequate to the type of the collected data

The descriptive statistics, the distribution of the frequencies and the comparisons have been done by means of the program SPSS Statistics, ver. 21; the data of the different parameters are presented as average ± standard deviation (SD). The correlations between the parameters, using the correlation coefficients (Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall) have also been evaluated. The comparisons among the groups under study have been made by means of the Student and Anova tests. All of them have been statistically significant at the level of p<sup>1</sup> = 0,05 and p2 = 0,01.

the informed consent for the participation in the study was obtained from all patients.

evaluation.

120 Drug Addiction

substitution therapy with methadone.

tests for the psycho-diagnostic purpose.

establishing the substitution therapy.

(at nominal, regular and reporting level).

**3. Statistical analysis**

We have taken a group of 82 patients, both males and females, aged between 19 and 47, living in Bucharest and diagnosed with heroin addiction (according to ICD-10), who came voluntarily to get a substitute treatment with methadone in a center of specialized treatment of addiction, placed in Bucharest. The group under study has been described in details, taking into account the demographic, addiction characteristics and comorbidity, the history of the heroin consumption, the history of the treatment, the clinical and laboratory evaluation.
