A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry has found that medicated ADHD patients are less likely to be involved in car accidents than people who opt out of treatment.
The study examined over 2.3 million people in the United States that suffer from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a neurodevelopment disorder that impairs abilities to focus and impulse control in patients causing excessive fidgeting, talking or tapping.
“Core symptoms of ADHD may interfere with the competencies necessary to drive safely, predisposing those with the disorder to greater risk for accidents and injuries,” said Zheng Chang, lead author of the study and a researcher in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.
While writing the study, Chang and his co-authors estimated that over 22.1 percent of car crashes could have been avoided if the people who deal with ADHD would have received proper medication to subdue symptoms.
“This is a prevalent and preventable cause of mortality and morbidity among patients with ADHD and that is an important reason we investigated this issue,” Chang continued.
The study looked into health insurance claims from 2005 through 2014 to identify millions of Americans who had ADHD and were over the age of 18. A total of 83.9 percent of the people studied were shown to have received at least one prescription for ADHD medication.
Researchers also analyzed car crash data from a control group of people without ADHD and came to the conclusion that people who were diagnosed with ADHD had significantly higher chances of being involved in a vehicle collision.
“Male ADHD patients had a 38% lower risk of (motor vehicle crashes) when receiving ADHD medication compared to when not receiving medication, and female patients had a 42% lower risk of (motor vehicle crashes) when medicated,” Chang said.
However, researchers did also concede to finding certain holes within the study. For example, the data used to analyze car accident ratios only included emergency rooms visits and not fatal accidents or less serve accidents that didn’t require medical services. Researches also acknowledged that people who have been prescribed ADHD medication may not have necessarily been taking their meds during the time of the study.
Stephen P. Hinshaw, an internationally recognized psychologist whose focus is on ADHD, expressed that many studies have found driving to be a serious risk amongst people who have been diagnosed with the disorder.
“This study — of a large population, is of major importance,” Hinshaw stated. “The results are compelling. Still, medication for ADHD does not constitute, in most cases, a complete ‘cure.'”
Hinshaw also explained that ADHD symptoms may cause lapses in attention and rash judgments, but patients must be treated with a combination of medication and psychosocial treatments, such as behavior therapy, to truly be able to gain the proficiency needed to drive a car safely.