STUDY FINDINGS
INHALABLE HEROIN TRIAL

Chapter 5B

Selection and disposition of patients

As has been described in chapter 2, patients were recruited through an extensive selection procedure. The results of this selection process are described in this chapter. The first two steps of the selection process, the preselection of a source population on the basis of the treatment registration system, followed by the initial meeting with the physician, did not distinguish between heroin addicts that injected or inhaled heroin. During the initial screening, the third step of the recruitment process, the physician of the local treatment site decided whether the patient would participate in the trial on injectable heroin or the trial on inhalable heroin. Therefore, it was only from the initial screening that a distinction could be made between candidates for the trial on injectable heroin and the trial on inhalable heroin. Finally, since the first two steps of the selection process could not be fully documented, the results of these steps can only be presented by approximation. Figure 17 summarizes these first two steps of the selection process.

Figure 17. Flow diagram of first two steps of selection process