Department of Mental Health Services, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Vermont, USA
Talya Peltzman
Department of Mental Health Services, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Vermont, USA
Daniel Gottlieb
Department of Mental Health Services, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Vermont, USA
Brian Shiner
Department of Mental Health Services, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Vermont, USA; Department of Mental Health Services, National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Vermont, USA; and Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, USA
Department of Mental Health Services, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Vermont, USA; Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, New Hampshire, USA; and Office of Rural Health, Veterans Rural Health Resource Center, Vermont, USA
Patients diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at an elevated risk for suicide. No prior work has assessed the association between stimulant prescriptions and death by suicide in this population. This retrospective cohort study included Department of Veterans Affairs patients with an active ADHD diagnosis that received stimulant medications between 2016 and 2019. We found that months with active stimulant medication prescription was associated with decreased risk of suicide mortality compared with months without stimulant medication (odds ratio 0.57, 95% CI 0.36–0.88). Our results suggest that prescribing stimulant medications for patients diagnosed with ADHD is associated with decreased risk of suicide mortality.
