ADHD drugs and serious cardiovascular events in children and young adults.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Adverse-event reports from North America have raised concern that the use of drugs for attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of serious cardiovascular events.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective cohort study with automated data from four health plans (Tennessee Medicaid, Washington State Medicaid, Kaiser Permanente California, and OptumInsight Epidemiology), with 1,200,438 children and young adults between the ages of 2 and 24 years and 2,579,104 person-years of follow-up, including 373,667 person-years of current use of ADHD drugs. We identified serious cardiovascular events (sudden cardiac death, acute myocardial infarction, and stroke) from health-plan data and vital records, with end points validated by medical-record review. We e

SUBMITTER: Cooper WO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4943074 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature