Many young children are receiving drugs shortly after they are diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, disregarding treatment guidelines.
By Catholics for Catholics
Going against treatment guidelines, many doctors are prescribing medication way too early after diagnosing children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a new study.
According to The Epoch Times, that goes against the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends that young children should initiate therapy before being prescribed medication.
“We found that many young children are being prescribed medications very soon after their diagnosis of ADHD is documented,” Dr. Yair Bannett, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and lead author of the paper, said in a statement. “That’s concerning, because we know starting ADHD treatment with a behavioral approach is beneficial; it has a big positive effect on the child as well as on the family.”
Perceptible by symptoms such as hyperactivity and difficulty paying attention, ADHD is a disorder. About one in 10 children in the United States has the disorder.
The Times reported that Bannett and other researchers studied the timing of ADHD diagnosis, medication prescription, and drug treatment among children aged 3 to 5, using records from eight pediatric health systems in the United States.
The figures covered Jan. 1st, 2016, to Dec. 31st, 2023. The study found that of 712,478 children, 1.4 percent were diagnosed with ADHD when they were 4 or 5. The researchers found those figures after discounting certain patients, including those without two visits at least 180 days apart.
According to the study, doctors prescribed medications within one month of diagnosis to 42 percent of the 9,708 children diagnosed with ADHD. The average time from diagnosis to prescription was 28 days for 4-year-olds and zero days for 5-year-olds.
“More than one-third of patients lacked sufficient time for an evidence-based behavioral treatment before starting medications,” the researchers said in the study, which was published on Aug. 29 by JAMA Network Open. “This finding that, to our knowledge, has not been previously reported highlights the need to investigate factors that influence early medication prescriptions.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines recommend therapy for preschoolers diagnosed with or suspected of having ADHD. “[Medication] may be considered if these behavioral interventions do not provide significant improvement and there is moderate-to-severe continued disturbance in the 4-through 5-year-old child’s functioning,” the guidelines read.
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