Watch for anxiety and hypertension after starting ADHD medication: Aussie guidance
Professor David Coghill says the prescribing guide published this week has ‘important nuggets’ for GPs.
Patients starting stimulants may become anxious due to sudden awareness of their behvaiours, which can be mistaken for pharmacologically-induced anxiety, new Australian ADHD guidance says.
The 150-page prescribing guide published by the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association (AADPA) this week also recommends measuring blood pressure before and after changes to medicine dosing.
“We also know all practitioners — psychiatrists, paediatricians, GPs, other specialists — get little education and training in how to manage ADHD,” says psychiatrist Professor David Coghill, AADPA president and one of the lead authors.
“We felt a need for a guide that put all aspects of managing ADHD together.”
