ADHD medicine consumption in Europe after COVID-19: catch-up or trend change?

• Published in: BMC psychiatry Vol. 24; no. 1; p. 112
• Main Authors: Gimbach, Sophie, Vogel, Daniel, Fried, Roland, Faraone, Stephen V, Banaschewski, Tobias, Buitelaar, Jan, Döpfner, Manfred, Ammer, Richard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 09-02-2024; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: ADHD; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Control; COVID-19; COVID19; Data analysis; Diagnosis; Dosage and administration; Drug dosages; Drug therapy; Epidemics; Estimates; Germany; Hypotheses; Medicine; Pandemic; Pandemics; Pharmacoepidemiology; Population; Psychiatric services; Stimulants; Time series forecasting; Trends; Germany; Sweden; Romania; Luxembourg; Europe; Pharmacoepidemiology; Time series forecasting; ADHD; Pandemic; COVID19
• ISSN: 1471-244X; 1471-244X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12888-024-05505-9

Although the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications have been associated with mental health services utilization and medication consumption, there is no longitudinal study on the long-term impact on ADHD medication use trends.
This study examines the European ADHD medication consumption in 2020 to 2022 compared to the predicted consumption assuming the persistence of pre-pandemic trends. Predictions are calculated using Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) models.
While European ADHD medication sales recorded a drop in 2020, they returned to the predicted level in 2021, even slightly exceeding it. In 2022, we found a clear exceedance of the predicted level by 16.4% on average at country level. Furthermore, the increase in consumption growth in the post-pandemic period (2021-2022) compared to the pre-pandemic period (2014-2019) was significant in 26 of the 28 European countries under consideration.
There is strong evidence of a trend change in the ADHD medicine consumption growth throughout Europe after the COVID-19 pandemic.