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ADHD Medication Use Sharply Increased During COVID-19 Pandemic
Though use of many other behavioral health medications remained steady over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, use of medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) sharply increased, according to a cross-sectional study posted in JAMA Psychiatry.
“The lack of significant changes in the trends of incident prescriptions dispensed for antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and buprenorphine MOUD during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests that a unique set of drivers may have contributed to the differential use of ADHD medications,” authors said. “Increased awareness in underdiagnosed populations, increased needs due to COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, and reduced barriers to access may have helped to uncover preexisting unmet needs as well as potential overprescribing.”
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Researchers gathered data from the IQVIA National Prescription Audit on the incident prescriptions dispensed, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines, schedule II (C-II) stimulants, buprenorphine-containing medication for OUD, and nonstimulant medications for ADHD from US outpatient pharmacies. Data were analyzed from April 2018 to March 2022. Interrupted time-series analysis was used to compare trend changes.
Incident prescriptions for all 5 categories listed above changed from 51,500,321 before the pandemic to 54,000,169 during the pandemic. The largest increases were with C-II stimulants and nonstimulant ADHD drugs among patients aged 20 to 39 years (30% increase [from 1,887,017 to 2,455,706] and 81% [from 255,053 to 461,017], respectively) and female patients (25% [from 2,352,095 to 2,942,604] and 59% [from 395,678 to 630,678], respectively). Trends didn’t significantly change for the other medications examined—buprenorphine, antidepressants, or benzodiazepines.
Authors noted that there was no available causal data between drug utilization patterns and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic or data on patients’ races, which could have limited study results.
“The differential changes during the pandemic in incident prescription trends for ADHD medications, particularly for C-II stimulants, underscore the need for robust to address unmet needs while balancing public health concerns,” authors noted. “Additional research is needed to differentiate increases due to unmet need vs overprescribing, highlighting the need for further [adult] ADHD guideline development to define treatment appropriateness.”
