Psychostimulant use for children with ADHD in Australia

There has been rapid growth in the use of medication for treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in the last decade. This growth has often been explained as the recognition of a condition that affects up to 5% of all young people. The purpose of this study is to compare past medication trends and current usage in Australia with that in the United States. We present country-wide data from Australia on psychostimulant production and prescription rates. We also analyze data from one city on the number of children receiving medication. Results suggest that medication use in Australia is increasing at a rate similar to that found in the United States and that in one city a relatively small proportion of practitioners accounted for the majority of prescriptions. Results also suggest that, in Australia, there may be differences in prescription rates by income and unemployment.