Doctors are being urged to take a holistic approach to young patients with ADHD symptoms after research found poorer health outcomes for those taking medication only to manage the condition.
Senior research fellow at Deakin University Ha Le undertook research to explore the impact ADHD has on long-term quality of life in children.
“In this study, we found that compared to their peers those with clinical symptoms of ADH had poorer health-related quality of life across all domains, including physical, social, emotional and school functioning,” she said.
Ms Le said these findings emphasised the importance of clinicians considering each individual and their unique presentations when diagnosing and prescribing.
“It’s important for them to also look for, and to treat, co-occurring conditions and to explore what difficulties or challenges there are associated with ADHD,” she said.
“Not just the ADHD symptoms like the functional or hyperactivity and attention, but other things like social, emotional, educational needs, other things going on with this child and family life.”
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Ms Le said a holistic approach to patients and their situations was required, especially considering caregivers of children with ADHD were more likely to experience poor mental health.
Her research found children with parents who experienced poor mental health also had poorer quality of life outcomes.
“We found that caregiver mental health also impacts children in their quality of life, so it’s very important to also pick up that as well – to consider caregiver mental health when they see patient,” Ms Le said.
“This is a big gap in the literature and also in practice at the moment, because doctors might not have enough time to focus too much on talking about other things, rather than just the patient when they have them there.
“But caregiver mental health is also being impacted, and clinicians need to have some strategies to help them as well.”
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While Ms Le’s research found that children who took ADHD medicine often had lower health-related quality of life outcomes, she said this should not discourage doctors from prescribing such medications.
“We know that in many other previous studies, they found a positive outcome between ADHD medication and functional outcome like reducing ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity or inattention. And some studies found a positive association with children in quality of life as well,” she said.
“But this study found something a little bit different, we found that those who took medication in our sample had more severe social and emotional difficulties than the others.”
Ms Le said parents and caregivers should not be discouraged from their children taking medications but instead should look at medication as just one aspect of managing the condition.
“Multimodal treatment is recommended internationally and nationally, not just medication alone, but also other psychosocial behavioural strategies like going into a psychosocial therapy or educational therapy, depending on need, and even ADHD coaches,” Ms Le added.
RELATED: Call for GPs keen to diagnose and treat ADHD
Up to 65 West Australian GPs are expected to begin assessing and prescribing for ADHD as early as next year as part of an initiative that will provide some GPs a bigger role in managing the condition.
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