No Causal Link Between Stimulants and Psychotic Experiences in Kids With ADHD

 ADHD in the News 2025-05-15


Key Takeaways: There was no evidence to support a causal relationship between stimulant prescription and psychotic experiences in children, ages 9-14 years, treated for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. In unweighted analyses, stimulant prescription was associated with subsequent psychotic experiences; however, the reverse was also true in that baseline psychotic experiences predicted subsequent stimulant treatment. When applying doubly robust estimation, there was no evidence of a causal effect of stimulant prescription on the subsequent occurrence of psychotic experiences.