A study conducted at Auburn University in Alabama recruited 54 college students to address this question. All had previously been diagnosed with ADHD. All lived independently, and all were taking a prescribed ADHD medication. Students with severe comorbid psychiatric conditions were excluded. Three students dropped out, leaving a final sample size of 51.

Each student completed a total of four half-hour assessments, scheduled at monthly intervals. At each first assessment, researchers counted the participant’s ADHD medication pills and transferred them to an electronic monitoring bottle – a bottle with a microchip sensor in the cap that automatically tracks the date and time of every opening. This enabled them to compare students’ subjective estimates at subsequent assessments with the objective evidence from pill counts and from the data output from the electronic monitoring bottles.

Overall, students reported missing about one in four (25 percent) of their prescribed doses. But the objective measures showed they were in fact skipping closer to half their doses. According to pill counts they were missing 40 percent of their doses, and according to the electronic monitoring bottles, 43 percent. The odds of obtaining such a result due to chance with a sample of size were less than one in a hundred (p < 0.01).

In other words, college students with ADHD significantly overestimate their adherence rates to their medications. The authors concluded, “without additional strategies in place, expecting adolescents and young adults with ADHD to remember a daily task that requires no more than a few seconds to accomplish, such as medication taking, is unrealistic.” They suggest using smartphone reminder applications (“apps”) and text messaging services.

The authors caution that this was the first such study, and that it had a small sample size. Moreover, the study was not randomized. Students responded to advertisements posted on campus, and thus self-selected.

Pending the outcome of larger studies with randomization, the authors suggest that wherever possible, prescribing physicians adopt objective measures of medication adherence, as an aid to ensuring greater efficacy of treatment.

REFERENCES

Megan R. Schaefer, Scott T. Wagoner, Margaret E. Young, Alana Resmini Rawlinson, Jan Kavookjian, Steven K. Shapiro, Wendy N. Gray, “Subjective Versus Objective Measures of Medication Adherence in Adolescents/Young Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, Published online July 11, 2018, DOI: 10.1097/DBP.0000000000000602.