Study denies ADHD's drug link with increased suicidal behaviour

A new study has revealed that ADHD's drug therapy is not the reason behind increased risk of suicide attempts or suicide.

Henrik Larsson, researcher at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics said that the results rather indicate that ADHD drugs may have a protective effect.

He further explained that many epidemiological studies on the risks related to drugs fail to adjust for the differences between individuals who take the drugs and those who do not and this is a critical limitation given that the individuals on medication are usually more severely ill than the others.

Therefore, the study compared the rate of suicidal behaviors while the patients were receiving ADHD medication with the rate for the same patients who were not receiving medication.

Using this design the researchers were able to determine that there was no evidence to support that ADHD drug therapy would increase the risk of suicide attempts or suicide.

The study is published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).