Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD)
- Drugs
The Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD) was set up in 1990 to collect information about people in Scotland seeking specialist treatment for drug use and closed in March 2021 due to the introduction of the Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy).
The SDMD was based on systematic recording of a national dataset on clients seen at a broad range of services across Scotland.
The database holds information on demographic and behavioural characteristics of new clients coming to the attention of medical services (general practice, hospital etc.) and specialist drug services (statutory and non-statutory).
View the most recent statistics release.
Content of the database
The database includes:
- demographic information
- presenting information
- prescribed drug profile
- illicit drug profile
- injecting/ sharing details
- social profile
- dependent children
- contact with services
Aims
The aims of the database were to:
- monitor presenting problem use
- collect information about clients presenting to services for assessment of their care or treatment needs pertaining to drug use
- help identify, or confirm, trends
- inform discussion about service provision
- provide data for the Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) for taking forward the drug misuse strategy
- provide information in support of monitoring targets set by the Scottish Government
Further information
Further information on SDMD and historical data submission is available on ISD Scotland (external website).
The Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) provides information on various aspects of illicit drug use in Scotland.
Find out more about drug misuse on ScotPHO (external website).