Many children taking ADHD drugs say that it helps them control their behaviour and make better decisions, according to new survey

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The ADHD Voices (Voices On Identity, Childhood, Ethics and Stimulants) report was published yesterday and received a significant amount of press coverage. The outcomes of this work are a 46-page report and 18-minute video, that aim to inspire a fresh public conversation about the ethics of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis and stimulant drug treatments like Ritalin and Adderall.

The study has been led by Dr Ilina Singh from the Department of Social Science, Health & Medicine at King’s College London, and funded by the Wellcome Trust. Dr Singh and her team interviewed children and their families from the UK and US to find out what they think of the ethical and social issues surrounding this often controversial illness. They focused particularly on medication, to try and find out more about what the children taking drugs like ritalin actually think about how it affects them.

151 families took part in the research (82 from the UK and 69 from the US) and 3 different groups of children were interviewed:

  1. Children who were taking stimulants for a diagnosis of ADHD
  2. Children who had a diagnosis of ADHD but were unmedicated
  3. Children without a psychiatric diagnosis

The participants’ ages ranged from 9 to 14 years. Overall, 63% of the participants were aged between 9-11 years. The mean age was 11.2 overall. The mean age was slightly higher in the UK (M=11.41, SD=1.5) than in the US (M=10.87, SD=1.6) and this difference was significant (p<.05).

There were lots more girls included in the US sample (39.1%) than in the UK (19.5%) and lots more black children in the US sample (23.2%) than in the UK (3.7%), although the low number of African-American children in the study make the findings preliminary and subject to further research. The average child in the VOICES study was an 11 year old, lower-middle class, white boy.

The study participants were broadly similar in terms of the severity of their illness, except that diagnosed UK children scored significantly higher on the Conners’ Oppositional scale than participants in the US (63.1% and 56.7%, respectively, p<.05).

Four female researchers conducted the 1-hour interviews, mostly in clinical settings, which also involved parents and caregivers. The interviews with children focused on four overlapping areas:

  1. Behaviour
  2. Brain
  3. Medication
  4. Identity

Across four contexts:

  1. Home
  2. School
  3. Doctor’s office
  4. Peer group

The researchers incorporated drawing, a vignette, sentence completion tasks, standardised pictures and a sorting task into the interview to ensure that children were given the opportunity to tackle a set of complicated issues using a variety of skills and techniques.

The conclusions of this study are:

  • Children should be seen as developing moral agents who aspire to make good decisions, to be in control of their behaviour, and to take personal responsibility for their behaviour
  • Stimulant medication does not compromise children’s moral development; in fact it can support children’s capacity for moral decision making
  • Ethical solutions to children’s behavioural difficulties address the biological and the social dimensions of these difficulties. No child should be diagnosed and medicated because it is cheaper or more convenient than providing adequate social or educational resources
  • An ethical treatment approach to ADHD supports the child as a team member with a voice in the process of medical decision-making. This process should openly acknowledge local values and expectations of children’s behaviour, achievement and performance

The qualitative approach followed in this study was supported by quantitative analysis of the data gathered. It’s a novel approach that makes sense; conducting the research with children, not on children. The authors have used their funding well to produce an accessible study report and innovative video that presents the results in an engaging and entertaining way.

Links

Singh, I. VOICES Study: Final Report (PDF). 2012.
[Note: before downloading the report, please note that it is 47MB and will be slow to download on rickety NHS Internet connections]

ADHD Voices website.

Printed copies of the full ADHD Voices report and DVD can be obtained from contact@adhdvoices.com

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Andre Tomlin

André Tomlin is an Information Scientist with 20 years experience working in evidence-based healthcare. He's worked in the NHS, for Oxford University and since 2002 as Managing Director of Minervation Ltd, a consultancy company who do clever digital stuff for charities, universities and the public sector. Most recently André has been the driving force behind the Mental Elf and the National Elf Service; an innovative digital platform that helps professionals keep up to date with simple, clear and engaging summaries of evidence-based research. André is a Trustee at the Centre for Mental Health and an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London Division of Psychiatry. He lives in Bristol, surrounded by dogs, elflings and lots of woodland!

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