National Drug Strategy
National Drug Strategy

Management of Patients with Psychostimulant Toxicity: Guidelines for Emergency Departments

Print page  Decrease text size  Increase text size

This document provides draft guidelines for emergency departments throughout Australia to effectively and safely manage individuals who are experiencing, or suspected of experiencing psychostimulant toxicity and associated severe behavioural disturbance.

Prepared by Linda Jenner, David Spain, Ian Whyte, Amanda Baker, Vaughan Carr and Julia Crilly on behalf of the Guidelines Development Working Party.

These draft guidelines are intended to be used in conjunction with the publication Models of Intervention and Care for Psychostimulant Users, 2nd Edition, Commonwealth Monograph Series Number 51, Baker, A., Lee, N.K., & Jenner, L. (eds) (2004). The Monograph can be obtained by contacting National Mail and Marketing on (02) 6269 1000, emailing health@nationalmailing.com.au, or downloading from the Department of Health and Ageing website: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/health-pubhlth-publicat-document-mono51-cnt.htm

Management of Patients with Psychostimulant Toxicity: Guidelines for Emergency Departments (PDF 161 KB)

Page currency, Latest update: 25 September, 2006

Help with accessing large documents

When accessing large documents (over 500 KB in size), it is recommended that the following procedure be used:

  1. Click the link with the RIGHT mouse button
  2. Choose "Save Target As.../Save Link As..." depending on your browser
  3. Select an appropriate folder on a local drive to place the downloaded file

Attempting to open large documents within the browser window (by left-clicking) may inhibit your ability to continue browsing while the document is opening and/or lead to system problems.

Help with accessing PDF documents

To view PDF (Portable Document Format) documents, you will need to have a PDF reader installed on your computer. A number of PDF readers are available through the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) Web Guide website.