Parents survey: Perceptions of the duration of their child's ADHD medication

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPGY, TSX: SHQ), the global specialty biopharmaceutical company, yesterday announced results of a national survey where 60 percent of 121 mothers reported their 6 to12 year old child’s once-daily Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication stopped working before 6 p.m. The survey findings report the perceptions of 500 parents of children with ADHD regarding the duration of effectiveness of their child’s once-daily stimulant or non-stimulant ADHD medication and were presented yesterday at the 2007 Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) Annual Conference.

This survey was conducted via Internet interviews of 249 parents of children with ADHD aged 6 to 12 years (125 took stimulant medications and 124 children took non-stimulant medications) and 251 parents of adolescents aged 13 to 17 years (126 took stimulant medications and 125 took non-stimulant medications). The children of the surveyed parents took their ADHD medication once daily in the morning.

Results of the survey found that among the 249 parents of children aged 6 to12 with ADHD, a majority of those children take their ADHD medication between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. Among 219 parents with children taking ADHD stimulant medications, 70 percent said that their child’s medication lasted 11 hours or less.

Additionally, more than half of parents of children with ADHD aged 6 to 12 reported that their child’s medication stopped working before 6 p.m. A graphical representation of this finding is available at http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071109/NYF019.

“These survey results illustrate that parents may not see their children’s ADHD medications working until 6 p.m.,” said Robert Findling, M.D., lead author of the survey and Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University and Director of the Division of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. “This may be important because ADHD doesn’t only impact a child’s school performance but can also impact interactions with friends, coaches, and other family members.”

This survey was supported by Shire plc.

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