Treatment of Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and/or Tourette's Disorder with Clonidine Extended Release

We aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of clonidine extended release (ER) treatment in Korean youth with ADHD and/or Tourette's disorder. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 29 children and adolescents treated with clonidine ER. The effectiveness were retrospectively measured at baseline and after 4 and 12 weeks based on the Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) and Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I) scores. Safety was evaluated at each visit based on spontaneous reports from the subjects or from their parents/guardians. Significant decreases in the CGI-S scores for both ADHD (F=23.478, p<0.001, partial η2=0.540) and tic symptoms (F=15.137, p<0.001, partial η2=0.443) were noted over 12 weeks. The most common adverse event was somnolence (n=9, 31.0%) and life-threatening adverse effects were not observed. Our results provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness and safety of clonidine ER.