Efficacy of Pharmacological versus Psychotherapeutic Therapies in Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): An Empirical Meta-Analysis

Efficacy of Pharmacological versus Psychotherapeutic Therapies in Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): An Empirical Meta-Analysis Longitudinal studies on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show a persistency of the disorder until adulthood in up to 1/3 of cases. This raises the question about the efficacy of the common therapies for this group. To answer this question, this article documents the results of an empirical meta-analysis, including 12 psychotherapy studies and 43 pharmacological studies. The results show a weighted effect size for the psychotherapeutic studies of 0.84 (confidence interval 95%: 0.64-1.04). For the pharmacological studies, a weighted effect size of 0.44 (confidence interval 95%: 0.37-0.50) could be found. The results are critically discussed, regarding methodological issues (e. g. usage of different instruments, different dependent variables) and further subject-related aspects.