ADHD medications may reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infection

Increasing evidence supports an association between ADHD and various health-risk behaviors

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the risk of subsequent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among adolescent and young adult populations by about three times, reports a study published in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP). The authors also found that short- and long-term use of ADHD medication reduced the risk of subsequent STIs among men by 30% and 41%, respectively. "ADHD is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder, and affects approximately 5%-7% of children and adolescents and 2% of young adults," said lead author Mu-Hong Chen, MD, a physician at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital and the College of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei. "Increasing evidence supports an association between ADHD and various health-risk behaviors, such as risky driving, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors. Clinical psychiatrists [should] focus on the occurrence of risky sexual behaviors and the risk of STIs among patients with ADHD, and emphasize that treatment with ADHD medications may be a protective factor for prevention of STIs."

The findings are based on the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database, which is a nationally representative database of medical claims and healthcare data from > 99% of the entire Taiwan population. A cohort of 17,898 adolescents and young adults who were diagnosed with ADHD and 71,592 age and sex-matched non-ADHD controls who did not have STIs prior to enrollment were studied. Adolescents aged 12-17 years and young adults aged 18-29 years were followed from January 1, 2001 through December 31, 2009. The researchers tracked data related to risk of STIs, including HIV, syphilis, genital warts, gonorrhea, chlamydial infection, and...Read more...

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