Prescribing of medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder among young people in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink 2005–2013: analysis of time to cessation

The aim of this study was to examine the time to cessation of ADHD medication amongst young people with ADHD aged 16 in the period 2005–2013. Previous studies of prescribing in primary care reported high rates of medication cessation amongst 16 and 17 year olds with ADHD. The examination of trends since the introduction of new NICE guidance in 2008 will support service planning and improvement of outcomes over the vulnerable transition period from child to adult services. We used primary care records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and identified cases prescribed ADHD medication at the time of their 16th birthday during the study period. The outcome was time to medication cessation from the age of 16. Cessation of medication was defined as occurring at the beginning of a gap of over 6 months in prescriptions. 1620 cases were included. The median time to cessation was 1.51 years (95% CI 1.42–1.67).The estimated probability of remaining on medication was 0.63 (95% CI 0.61–0.65) at age 17 (i.e., at 1 year) and 0.41 (95% CI 0.39–0.43) at age 18. Young people with ADHD remain at high risk of cessation of medication during the transition from child to adult services. Despite the restriction that only primary care prescribing data were available, the results suggest continuing disparity between expected levels of symptom persistence and continuation of medication. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00787-017-1011-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.