{"doi":"10.1111/add.16716","title":"Prevalence of pharmacotherapy for attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder and prescription stimulant misuse: A national study of US college students","abstract":"BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Increasing rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) pharmacotherapy may simultaneously benefit patients and increase the availability of stimulants for misuse. We measured the association between university-level prevalence of ADHD medication treatment and prevalence of prescription stimulant misuse (PSM) among college students. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: This was an observational study using cross-sectional data from the American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment III. Data included 395 participating universities between Fall 2019 and Fall 2022. Our sample included 224 469 undergraduates aged 18-25 years (65.2% cisgender female; 58.7% White). MEASUREMENTS: Students self-reported any life-time clinical ADHD diagnosis, past-year ADHD medication treatment and past-3-month PSM. We defined university-level ADHD medication prevalence as the proportion of included students endorsing past-year ADHD medication treatment. Secondary outcomes included life-time PSM and moderate- to high-risk alcohol and cannabis use. We also measured university-level depression medication prevalence as a negative control exposure. FINDINGS: Among the included students, 9.6% reported a life-time clinical ADHD diagnosis, 5.1% reported past-year medication treatment and 2.4% reported past-3-month PSM. The prevalence of ADHD medication treatment varied among universities [mean = 5.3%, standard deviation (SD) = 2.8%]. In adjusted models, prevalence of PSM was 7% relatively greater for every 1% increase in university-level medication prevalence [adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR) = 1.07; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.04-1.09]. Further, individuals with non-medication-treated ADHD were 40% more likely to report PSM than those without ADHD (aPR = 1.40; 95% CI = 1.25-1.56). There was no statistically significant difference in PSM among individuals with ADHD who did or did not receive medication (aPR = 0.90; 95% CI = 0.78-1.04). Results for secondary outcomes and the negative control partially supported the specificity of the findings. CONCLUSIONS: Among university students in the United States, there appears to be a positive association between attending universities with a greater prevalence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication treatment and risk of prescription stimulant misuse (PSM). This study provides further support for the possibility that ADHD medication treatment prevalence is a risk factor for PSM.","journal":"Addiction","year":2024,"id":445966,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9568,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1262786,"name":"Madison C. Moseley","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":263392,"name":"Natasha Chaku","orcid":"0000-0003-0944-6159","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":894348,"name":"Kit K. Elam","orcid":"0000-0003-0319-5897","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1244231,"name":"Wura Jacobs","orcid":"0000-0002-4293-5635","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":966791,"name":"Alyssa M. Lederer","orcid":"0000-0002-9430-0287","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1089843,"name":"Ellen L. Vaughan","orcid":"0000-0002-1486-2969","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":474624,"name":"Patrick D. Quinn","orcid":"0000-0002-6770-8762","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1262353,"name":"Alynna G. Summit","orcid":"0000-0003-0692-133X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":80,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:01:46.243344Z","pmid":"39552232","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}