These women stopped going out after getting their drinks spiked

Those were the words of a victim of drink spiking, who revealed her story to Bendigo researcher Dr Jess Ison.

Dr Ison has spent two and a half years researching drink spiking, talking to victims, hospitality venues, paramedics and health experts.

While the data was still being analysed, it was clear it was an area that still needed understanding particularly in rural communities.

"One of the things that really stands out is that we don't know a lot about the issue," Dr Ison said.

"It's something that is very under-reported to police or to health services.

"Victim survivors are very reluctant to come forward and have a lot of self blame, and that when they do come forward, they can face some really negative responses from health systems and from police."

Researchers preferred to refer to drink spiking as "drink-spiking-related sexual violence" as victims were often sexually assaulted.

However even victims who weren't sexually assaulted suffered lasting effects, Dr Ison said.

"A lot of victims we've spoken to would go to great pain to say 'well, I got home safe and thankfully I wasn't sexually assaulted', but then in the next breath they'd tell me, 'oh, but I don't go out anymore'," she said.

"They kind of start listing off some what are very big impacts on someone's life.

"You never go out anymore? That's a huge impact on your life, especially [because] before that you're someone that went out quite a lot with your friends."

The research was undertaken by La Trobe Rural Health School, led by associate professor Leesa Hooker, and funded by a state government Crime Prevention Innovation fund.

Researchers spoke with a group of victims across the state, as well as several venues in Bendigo, Victoria.

It started at a time when there had been a spate of reported drink-spiking incidents in the region, Dr Ison said.

Dr Ison said drink spiking was more likely to be perpetrated by someone the victim knew, and would commonly happen away from a licensed venue.

"People think of drink spiking as a stranger, putting a substance like GHB or Rohypnol in somebody's drink out at a club," she said.

"That does happen... [but] it is more likely someone, a friend or acquaintance or a date adding additional alcohol to your drink without your knowledge.

"The more likely scenario is getting you pretty intoxicated when you're out maybe on additional alcohol, and then taking you back to a private residence and administering more alcohol or other drugs without your knowledge or consent."

One area that needed improving was victimisation, and putting the blame on victims.

"Victims are very, very reluctant to come forward, particularly if they were drinking or taking other drugs at the time, because they think they'll get blamed," Dr Ison said.

"And often they do; they'll go to the hospital, or go to the police and they get treated poorly for just getting themselves too intoxicated."

Not being able to report or talk about drink spiking in a safe environment made it "very hard" for victims' healing, Dr Ison said.

Venues and bar staff also needed to be educated further on drink spiking, the research found.

Dr Ison said researchers developed a resource for bar staff to guide them through the steps of what to do if they suspected someone had been drink-spiked.

They also helped update the Responsible Service of Alcohol course to include more information on the issue.

There was no "quick fix" for drink spiking, Dr Ison said, and it needed to be included in the conversation about violence against women in Australia.

Alcohol culture and societal pressures needed to be addressed, as well as men's entitlement.

"What we see with something like drink spiking is it really culminates quite a lot of these really horrific things like sexual violence, harmful alcohol cultures and entitlement, they kind of all come together," Dr Ison said.

Dr Ison said she was interested in taking her research nationwide for a larger study, however it would depend on funding.