Quality of life of heroin dependent patients from a drug dependence attention center of Medellin (Colombia)

Objective. To describe the quality of life in terms of health, in the different stages of treatment of patients addict to heroin attended in a drug-dependence attention center of Medellin. Methodology. Cross sectional epidemiological study. 40 heroin addicts in the different stages of treatment: dishabituation, social reinsertion and maintenance program with methadone were interviewed in 2009. The SF-36 instrument for the evaluation of the quality of life and the Zung’s test for depression were used. Descriptive analysis and comparisons through non parametric tests to determine differences among the groups were performed (Group 1: Hospitalized patients, in phase of dishabituation and social reinsertion, and group 2: patients in any of the stages of the methadone’s maintenance program according to the treatment’s phase). Statistical significance was assumed if p