More Dutch adults using medication for ADHD

Dutch adults with ADHD used medication more frequently in 2022. According to data from the Dutch Foundation for Pharmaceutical Statistics (SFK), the number of users aged 18 and over increased by 13 percent from the year before, rising from 154,000 to 174,000 individuals.

Among children and teenagers, a slight increase in medication use was observed. This is primarily due to an increased number of users of one specific drug, lisdexamfetamine. The usage of the most commonly prescribed drugs, methylphenidate and dexamphetamine, remained stable among minors.

Young people tend to use ADHD medications more frequently than adults. SFK did not provide a reason for the increase among adults, as the organization focuses solely on the data.

Currently, lisdexamfetamine is the least used drug, but its usage is growing at the highest percentage rate. Among adults, the number of users rose by over a third to 15,000, and among children, it increased by 23 percent to 8,700. The costs have also significantly increased, by nearly 15 percent. This surge in cost, which is higher than the increase in the number of users, is because lisdexamfetamine, which is increasingly being used, is approximately four times as expensive as methylphenidate.