Research Report: Latest Trends in ADHD Drug Prescribing Patterns in Children in the UK

Authors Raphaelle Beau-Lejdstrom, Ian Douglas, Stephen Evans, Liam Smeeth
Published by BMJ Open, June 2016

SUMMARY

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is thought to affect 5.29 per cent of children worldwide. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Geneva wanted to investigate trends in the prescription of ADHD drugs, against a backdrop of new guidelines, the availability of new drugs and concerns about serious long-term heart problems linked to a particular ADHD drug.

For their paper - Latest Trends in ADHD Drug Prescribing Patterns in Children in the UK: Prevalence, Incidence and Persistence - the researchers analysed data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, one of the world's largest databases of anonymised medical records from primary care, which includes data from UK GP practices. Their sample comprised 14,748 children under 16 who had received at least one prescription of an ADHD drug between January 1992 and December 2013. The sample group was 85 per cent boys. In 94 per cent of cases the drug prescribed was methylphenidate, which is sold under various trade names including Ritalin.