A review of individual multidisciplinary team roles in alcohol and other drugs

Xuan Ye¹Leighlan Phillips^2,3Caity Morrison^3,4,5Jo Zhuang²Brit Chapman⁶Hannah Portogallo⁴Michael Hodge⁴Jo Linden⁴Antigone Branchflower^3,4Craig Harvey^3,4Robert M Lundin^2,3,4,5*

• ¹Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• ²Mildura Base Public Hospital, Mildura, Victoria, Australia
• ³Academic Regional and Rural Addictions Network, Geelong, Australia
• ⁴Barwon Health, Geelong, Victoria, Australia
• ⁵Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
• ⁶Harm Reduction Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) usage remains high globally and in Australia and results in a high amount of morbidity and mortality in our community. The Australian AOD workforce comprises a highly diverse range of healthcare professionals. Since medical doctors and AOD roles without specific credentials have already been covered in the literature, this review summarises on the other direct patient facing roles in the AOD multidisciplinary team. We focused on harm reduction workers, peer workers, social workers, pharmacists, occupational therapists, psychologists, nurses and nurse practitioners. The findings of this review show that previous non-specific roles such as peer and harm reduction workers are developing into their distinct disciplines with their own specific training. Experienced clinicians in their field such as nurse practitioners and senior pharmacists are given increasingly more scope of practice that aligns with medical practitioners. However, there is still limited research to some established disciplines such as the role occupational therapy and social work. Future research should focus on how these roles can be fully utilised in the AOD multidisciplinary team.