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Multicenter Study
. 2018 Jun;59(6):692-702.
doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12855. Epub 2018 Jan 8.

Substance use through adolescence into early adulthood after childhood-diagnosed ADHD: findings from the MTA longitudinal study

Brooke S G Molina  1 , Andrea L Howard  2 , James M Swanson  3 , Annamarie Stehli  3 , John T Mitchell  4 , Traci M Kennedy  5 , Jeffery N Epstein  6 , L Eugene Arnold  7 , Lily Hechtman  8 , Benedetto Vitiello  9 , Betsy Hoza  10
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Substance use through adolescence into early adulthood after childhood-diagnosed ADHD: findings from the MTA longitudinal study

Brooke S G Molina et al. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018 Jun.

Erratum in

  • Erratum.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018 Nov;59(11):e1. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12970. Epub 2018 Aug 20. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2018. PMID: 30339284 No abstract available.

Abstract

Background: Inconsistent findings exist regarding long-term substance use (SU) risk for children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The observational follow-up of the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) provides an opportunity to assess long-term outcomes in a large, diverse sample.

Methods: Five hundred forty-seven children, mean age 8.5, diagnosed with DSM-IV combined-type ADHD and 258 classmates without ADHD (local normative comparison group; LNCG) completed the Substance Use Questionnaire up to eight times from mean age 10 to mean age 25.

Results: In adulthood, weekly marijuana use (32.8% ADHD vs. 21.3% LNCG) and daily cigarette smoking (35.9% vs. 17.5%) were more prevalent in the ADHD group than the LNCG. The cumulative record also revealed more early substance users in adolescence for ADHD (57.9%) than LNCG (41.9%), including younger first use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and illicit drugs. Alcohol and nonmarijuana illicit drug use escalated slightly faster in the ADHD group in early adolescence. Early SU predicted quicker SU escalation and more SU in adulthood for both groups.

Conclusions: Frequent SU for young adults with childhood ADHD is accompanied by greater initial exposure at a young age and slightly faster progression. Early SU prevention and screening is critical before escalation to intractable levels.

Keywords: ADHD; Attention deficit disorder; adolescence; drug abuse.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: J.M.S. acknowledges research support, advisory board/speaker’s bureau and/or consulting for Alza, Richwood, Shire, Celgene, Novartis, Celltech, Gliatech, Cephalon, Watson, CIBA, UCB, Janssen, McNeil, Noven, NLS, Medice, and Lilly. J.T.M. received royalties from New Harbinger Press. L.E.A. received research funding from Curemark, Forest, Lilly, Neuropharm, Novartis, Noven, Shire, Supernus, and YoungLiving and consulted with or was on advisory boards for Gowlings, Neuropharm, Novartis, Noven, Organon, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, Seaside Therapeutics, Sigma Tau, Shire, and Tris Pharma and received travel support from Noven. L.H. received research support, served on advisory boards and was speaker for Eli Lilly, Glaxo/Smith/Kline, Ortho Janssen, Purdue, Shire and Ironshore. Other authors have no disclosures.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Regular SU in early adulthood by childhood ADHD/LNCG.
Figure 2
Figure 2
SU escalation as a function of childhood ADHD/LNCG
Figure 3
Figure 3
SU escalation as a function of childhood ADHD/LNCG and early SU
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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