A large percentage of children ages 8 to 15 who meet the criteria for having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are not receiving the medication they need to treat the disorder, researchers report.
The study—published in the September issue of the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine—examined 4,000 children in that age range in the United States. It found that 9 percent met the criteria for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, but only 39 percent of those children were receiving medication to treat it.
Researchers, led by Tanya E. Froehlich, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, also found that low-income children with ADHD were much less likely than their wealthier peers to be receiving medication to treat the disorder.
An estimated 16 percent of the poorest children in the study who met the criteria for ADHD were reported to be receiving the proper medication, compared with 39 percent for all children in the study.
“Prevalence, Recognition, and Treatment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in a National Sample of U.S. Children” can be found at the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
