Are ADHD Medications Overly Prescribed for Children?

AD/HD Today, diagnosis has improved for the condition known as AD/HD, or Attention Deficit Disorder. However, many parents are dismayed after getting the diagnosis to find that the only thing their insurance company will pay for is medication. Parents aren't always comfortable using medication at first, and some would like to try behavioral strategies before going to medications. Insurance companies, however, often will pay for medication, but not pay for behavioralists or psychologists, or only pay part of the bill.

Unless the parent can afford to make up the difference, their choices are then limited. For instance, an insurance Web site on AD/HTD devotes 1450 very specific words about medication, including specific information on establishing doses and when to try a different med, but only about 450 words with no real specific suggestions and less compelling arguments for its use. The message insurance companies get is that medication works and behavior management doesn't (AAP, 2001).

In fact it is true, according to the statistics, that medications work better than behavioral interventions, but virtually all experts recommend the use of both, while many insurance companies will pay for medication alone, even though not all children do well on medication. Learning to deal with the fact that one's child has AD/HD is like starting a long journey when you don't know the final destination.

Especially when a child is first diagnosed, many parents have significant concerns about the use of medications and want the least invasive treatment possible for their children. AD/HD is diagnosed by observing behaviors, and it makes sense that behavioral interventions might have a significant impact. Feeding into parents' reasonable concerns are repeated media reports that the medications are dangerous in some way.

Significant evidence exists that this concern has its roots in an organization opposed to all psychiatric and psychological interventions under all circumstances, a stance most people would not accept (Sappell & Welkos, 1990). The group has specifically targeted Ritalin because of its history of use in children.

This makes it harder for many parents to accept what doctors say about medications and AD/HD simply on faith, and parents know that research is made up of groups of individuals while their child is unique and may have a unique and unpleasant response. As one mother noted, "medication is a short-term solution to a 24-hour-a-day problem" (Kaplanek, 2002). Even when medication works, the child cannot take it 24 hours a day. In addition, some children respond negatively instead of positively to medications.

And while some experts might be willing to entrust a child's development entirely to attempts to normalize brain chemistry, parents look less scientifically at their children and see behaviors that need to change if the child is to grow up to be a happy and productive adult. Most parents want behavioral as well as medical interventions. Research regarding parent beliefs and attitudes toward medication for AD/HD bear this out.

Over 55% of the parents in the survey were reluctant to give their children medication because of information they had heard from the media. The doctors know that a lot of that information is wrong, but don't always take its impact into account when talking with parents whose children have just been diagnosed (Ellwood, 2003). Whether a child has AD/HD or not, the child still being raised by his or her parents, and not their insurance company. Whether to choose behavioral interventions, medications, or both, is a parental decision. Insurance.