Amphetamine Found to Have Higher Risk of Psychosis Than Methylphenidate for ADHD

The risk of psychosis associated with use of amphetamine in youth for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is twice as high as that of methylphenidate, according to areport in theNew England Journal of Medicine.Both types of medication are commonly prescribed for ADHD. In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration mandated changes to the drug labels of stimulants because of the risk of psychosis associated with their use.“The risk of new-onset psychosis was approximately 1 in 660 patients who received a prescription for stimulants for ADHD, but the risk was about twice as high among patients who started amphetamine,” wrote Lauren V. Moran, M.D., of the Division of Psychotic Disorders at McLean Hospital and colle agues.The researchers used two large health care databases, Optum Clinformatics and IBM MarketScan, to analyze claims for 110,923 patients aged 13 to 25 who were prescribed amphetamine for ADHD, and the same number of patients who were prescribed methylphenidate. The primary outcome was a new diagnosis of psychosis for which an antipsychotic medication was prescribed during the first 60 days after the date of the onset of psychosis.There were 343 episodes of psychosis: 106 episodes (0.10%) in the methylphenidate group and 237 episodes (0.21%) in the amphetamine group.Moran and colleagues wrote that the absolute rate of psychosis and the difference in the rates of psychosis between the two treatment groups was low, but this difference may be clinically signi...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ADHD amphetamine FDA methylphenidate NEJM risk of psychosis associated with stimulants Source Type: research