Eli Lilly produces a medication treatment for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Lilly’s ADHD drug – Strattera – is not selling well. One analyst predicts a continuing slide in market share through 2011. Lilly, though, believes the drug is viable and plans to get that message out. Part of their new marketing strategy is to let people know:
ADHD is a legitimate, serious disease and is actually under-diagnosed around the world.
The National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) states that between 3% and 5% of the population meet the criteria for ADHD. But talk to any grade school teacher in the suburbs and you are likely to find more than 5% of the kids in the classroom are on ADHD medication. Lilly’s belief appears to be that the number of children and adults with the disorder is under-reported.
I’m going with NIMH’s statistics on this.
Which means the disorder may in fact be over (erroneously) diagnosed. NIMH research also suggests that multi-modal treatment (medication plus therapy) was “usually superior” to either medication or therapy alone. How many of those suburban kids are being treated with only medication? I don’t know, but my guess is too many.
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What I want to know is how much of that ADHD is a-hickory-switch-itis.
Josh,
Behavior problems (a-hickory-switch-itis), depression (irritability, anger, and frustration are often symptoms of depression), learning disabilities, over-focusing… all are mistakenly diagnosed as ADHD.
My wife has 20 kids in her first grade class. Assuming her class was representative of the population at large (not a good assumption to make) there should be 1 child with ADHD in her class; she tells me 5 or 6 are on medication for ADHD. That is – potentially – a lot of mis-diagnosis.
The short answer to your question is: I don’t know.