Abstract

Addiction disorders are one of the biggest challenges for humanity. Substance abuse, smoking, and gambling permeate all groups and all ages, fueling crime, corruption, and terrorism, creating enormous wealth for some and unlimited harm to others. Healthcare institutions, private practice, and other legal entities have to prepare and submit prescribed individual reports on persons suffering from addiction to the competent institute, i.e., public health institute, based on medical documentation and records. Based on the submitted reports, institutions, and institutes keep a register of persons with an addiction disorder, with the aim of monitoring and providing the health status of the population, improving quality, planning health care, monitoring the implementation of plans and programs, as well as conducting research, informing the public, reporting to international institutions, etc. This instruction provides guidelines for completing an individual report for addiction patients and submitting it. The report includes information about the institution, the person (client, user), the conditions in which he lives, the causes of addiction, high-risk behaviors, and treatment. Reporting includes individuals who are either entering treatment or continuing treatment for their substance- and gambling-related problems. The treatment is defined as an activity (activities) in a specific treatment center that directly targets persons with a substance use problem and/or gambling disorder and aims to achieve defined goals related to the mitigation and/or elimination of these problems. In order to facilitate the reporting process, one health institution or one private practice is obliged to submit one report for one client during the calendar year and that application after the first contact due to treatment with employees in any treatment center within the institution. The instructions specifically contain additional guidelines for answering questions related to foreign nationals, homeless people, and minors. Due to the importance of highlighting the main cause of addiction, this decision process for the main cause is illustratively explained through a series of examples. The list of addiction causes is based on the methodology of the European Center for monitoring drugs and drug addiction, with recognized local specificity. Submission of applications is possible only through the Public Health Service, an electronic data exchange service under the jurisdiction of the Institute for Public Health of Serbia “Dr. Milan Jovanović Batut.” The prerequisite for delivery is the employee’s registration for the service. There are two ways of exchange: uploading data from local information solutions or directly entering the form on the service page. Data exchange is entirely secure and guarantees the confidentiality and integrity of the reporting process.

Key words: drugs, registry, public health, addiction.