TORONTO—One in 20 Ontario children and youth have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and many are prescribed antipsychotic drugs, despite having no other mental health diagnoses, researchers have found.
A study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) found that almost 12 percent of kids and youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, were prescribed antipsychotics like Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Seroquel.
“When we looked at the information on the children and youth with ADHD who were prescribed antipsychotics, a very, very small number of them had a condition where you would expect the use of an antipsychotic—conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia,” said senior author Dr. Paul Kurdyak, head of the mental health and addictions program at ICES.
As its name suggests, ADHD causes such symptoms as difficulty concentrating on tasks and restlessness, which can have major implications for school achievement, no matter a young person’s intellectual capabilities, Kurdyak said.
To conduct the study, published Jan. 18 in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, researchers took a random sample of health records for 10,000 Ontarians aged 1 to 24 and examined data relating to ADHD and other diagnoses, prescribed medications, and health services utilized.
They found that about 5 percent—or 536—of the children and youth had a diagnosis of ADHD. Males are two to three times more likely than females to be diagnosed with ADHD.
