Provided by David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D.
Surgeon General of the United States of America
Chapter 3: Children and Mental Health
Overview of Mental Disorders in Children
Treatment Controversies
Safety of Long-Term Stimulant Use
Even though the MTA Study found no safety issues over a 14-month period (Greenhill et al., 1998), concerns have been raised about the longer term safety of stimulant treatment. Since ADHD has an early onset and requires an extended course of treatment, research is needed to examine the long-term safety of treatment and to investigate whether other forms of treatment could be combined with psychostimulants to lower their dose as well as to reduce other problem behaviors found with ADHD. Such combined treatments could be targeted for symptoms of disorders that often accompany ADHD, such as conduct disorder, substance abuse, and learning disabilities, and could be targeted to improve overall functioning (Laufer, 1971; Gittelman et al., 1985).
Because stimulants are also drugs of abuse and because children with ADHD are at increased risk for a substance abuse disorder, concerns have also been raised about the potential for abuse of stimulants by children taking the medication or diversion of the drug to others. While stimulants clearly have abuse potential, the rate of lifetime nonmedical methylphenidate use has not significantly increased since methylphenidate was introduced as a treatment for ADHD, suggesting that abuse is not a major problem (Goldman et al., 1998). Case reports describing abuse by children prescribed stimulants for ADHD are rare (Hechtman, 1985)
5 Taylor, 1994; Cantwell, 1996; Waslick & Greenhill, 1997; Barkley, 1998; and NIH Consensus Statement 110, 1998.
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