January 27, 2023ADHD prescriptions and medication use among 12th grade patients hit an all-time high last year, according to a new study that found 15% of high school seniors reported stimulant or non-stimulant ADHD medication use in 2022 compared to 11% in 2021.
The annual Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) attributed this 36% increase in ADHD medication use to “more stress” or attention issues made “more salient to their parents” during the pandemic’s lockdowns and remote learning.1The legal, or medically supervised, use of ADHD medication was “one of the few substances with increasing prevalence during the pandemic,” according to the report, which found that lifetime use had increased for 8th, 10th, and 12th graders in 2022.
The 30-day use of stimulant and non-stimulant medication by 12th graders in 2022 was the highest ever recorded by NIDA’s survey.
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