Editor’s Note: We interviewed several leading ADHD experts on treating ADHD in primary care and acquired some very interesting insights into how clinicians can learn about and treat ADHD in their practices.

Anthony Rostain, MD MA: Physicians are often afraid about prescribing stimulant medications because they’re not familiar with the diagnosis of ADHD and they’re not sure whether they’re legitimately correct in prescribing these medications. Let’s start first by examining ADHD as a diagnosis. It is a legitimate diagnosis.

There is a medical procedure for making the diagnosis that includes taking careful history, getting the patient to fill out scales, getting collateral information from important others who understand something about the patient’s behavior. In addition you have to gather developmental history and educational history. You have to be aware of all of the different facets of the patient’s functioning and understand that ADHD is impacting and impairing that individual.

Brendan Montano MD: With familiarity and use of stimulant medications in ADHD I know I became much more willing and able to use them. Also many pediatricians have no problem with stimulants and I feel that that will also occur when the primary care network begins to treat ADHD more vigorously, diagnose it and treat it. Our pediatric allies had been used to treating ADHD in childhood and they’d been familiarized and become comfortable with the use of stimulant medications. I believe the same thing will occur with our adult primary care providers. Familiarity and seeing the beneficial effect will give comfort to those who treat with stimulant medications. Remembering again there are some non-stimulants that are also quite effective. Now, it is important to be aware of the fact that stimulant medications can be diverted, they can be misused, they can be abused.

Stephen Faraone, PhD: And that’s a reasonable concern. However, today that concern is mitigated by several factors. First, we have new formulations of stimulants that are much less abusable than the immediate-release Ritalin many of you are used to. Second, there are now FDA-approved non-stimulant alternatives for ADHD. So you really do have a very large toolbox of therapies to use for adultswith ADHD.

Brendan Montano, MD: The more you become familiarized and screen for this illness, the more you become familiarized with treating the illness. So I became comfortable by seeing the beneficial effects and the outcomes which were otherwise not going to occur in my ADHD patients. The lack of training of primary care practitioners has created a shortage of treatment for adults with ADHD. We have methodological studies that prove there are 10 million undiagnosed adults with ADHD in the United States. I think the 10 million people who have this disorder really deserve for us to become familiarized not only with how to diagnose ADHD but how to treat it.

Anthony Rostain, MD: It’s important to keep in mind that if you follow sound clinical practice and document what you’re doing, including how you made the diagnosis of ADHD, that you informed the patient about treatment options and that you gave the patient all kinds of patient education materials to warn them about the danger of misusing the medication, then you’re following standard medical practice and you won’t be in any medical or legal difficulty.