Stimulant medication and suicide mortality in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders
• suicide
• mortality
• epidemiology
• statistical methodology