Wait times for publicly funded addiction and problem gambling treatment agencies in Ontario, Canada

BackgroundThis study describes the definitions of wait times and intake processes used by drug and problem gambling treatment agencies in Ontario, Canada, as well as the various strategies employed to ameliorate client backlog.MethodsAn online survey was developed and distributed to 203 publicly-funded, provincial substance use and problem gambling treatment agencies from June to August, 2011. All aspects of the intake process were covered in the survey.ResultsBased on 139 responses, six different wait time periods were identified. Additional analyses were completed by type of service offered. Suggestions for effective interventions to shorten wait times and recommendations for future research are provided.ConclusionThe results of this study highlight a need for standardized definitions of wait times across substance use and problem gambling treatment services.

• Publication year

  2013

• Venue

  BMC Health Services Research

• Publication date

  2013-11-19

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1186/1472-6963-13-483PMID 24252217PMCID 3874680
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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