ADVERTISEMENT
ADHD Medication Linked With Lower Unemployment Risk, Particularly In Women
Pharmacological treatment for adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was associated with a lower risk of long-term unemployment, especially in women, in a population-based cohort study in Sweden. These findings "should be considered together with the existing knowledge of risks and benefits of ADHD medication when developing treatment plans for working-age adults," researchers wrote in their study published in JAMA Network Open.
“We found that use of ADHD medications in women showed stronger negative associations with long-term unemployment than in men. These findings may be consistent with several clinical trials on ADHD medications reporting greater improvement in ADHD symptoms and some functional outcomes (eg, social life and family functioning, well-being) among women than in men,” researchers wrote. “These findings are, nevertheless, inconsistent with findings from other clinical trials that have reported the reverse or no sex differences in response to these medications.”
The study, which defined long-term unemployment as 90 or more days of unemployment per year, included 12,875 middle-aged adults with ADHD, 41.50% of whom were women.
The use of ADHD medications during the previous 2 years was associated with a 10% lower risk of long-term unemployment, according to the study. Relative risks for long-term unemployment with ADHD medication were 0.82 for women and 0.96 in men.
Related: Two in Five Adults With ADHD Report Thriving Mental Health
A longer duration of treatment with ADHD medication was associated with lower risk of long-term unemployment among women: relative risks for unemployment were 0.72 for 18 to 24 months of pharmacologic treatment compared with 0.86 for 1 to 6 months of pharmacologic treatment.
Additionally, within-individual comparisons found a lower unemployment rate during periods of ADHD medication (0.89 relative risk) compared with periods of no ADHD medication.
“Although our observed effect size may be viewed as small in magnitude, a reduction of 10% in the risk of long-term unemployment might translate into a substantial decrement of the economic burden at the societal level,” researchers wrote. “Regardless, the small effect size suggested that other treatment programs, such as psychotherapy, are also needed to help individuals with ADHD in work-related settings.”
Reference
