New Stimulant Prescriptions for ADHD Climbed During Pandemic, Study Shows

While new prescription rates for most medications to treat behavioral health conditions was steady during the COVID-19 pandemic, prescriptions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications rose sharply, astudy published yesterday inJAMA Psychiatryfound. The largest increases in ADHD medication prescriptions were among women and people aged 20 to 39.“During the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread concerns arose regarding increased behavioral health needs and unprecedented challenges in health care access,” wrote Grace Chai, Pharm.D., M.P.H., of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and colleagues. “[P]ande mic-related stressors and early mitigation measures such as stay-at-home orders, virtual schooling, and economic stressors contributed to concerns of increased behavioral health needs.”Chai and colleagues analyzed data from the National Prescription Audit, which captures 94% of prescriptions dispensed at outpatient pharmacies in the United States. Drugs in five classes were included: antidepressants, benzodiazepines, Schedule II stimulants, nonstimulant ADHD drugs, and buprenorphine labeled as a medication for opioid use disorder. To capture changes in medication initiation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors looked at new prescriptions dispensed from April 2018 to March 2022.In the two years before the pandemic (April 2018 to March 2020), 51.5 million prescriptions in the five classes were dispensed...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: antidepressants benzodiazepines buprenorphine JAMA Psychiatry pandemic stimulants women young adults Source Type: research