What are your main priorities?
Our objectives are to promote evidence-based treatment, information and ADHD Awareness at European level, support the efforts of our European Member Organisations members who provide support for children, adolescents, adults, parents and families as well as for their teachers, employers and other professionals who work with them across Europe. This includes: access to education; medical help and employment; as well as support in adulthood if needed ~ working together towards interventions for children, adolescents and adults living with ADHD, their families, professionals and decision makers.
To work towards a better quality of live for people living with ADHD, we liaise and collaborate where possible with European Federation of Neurological Association, Mental Health Europe, Gamian-Europe and the European Brain Council to learn more about European activities, share experiences and collaborate where possible to support efforts of national and regional ADHD-Europe members.
ADHD-Europe has recently published the Access to Diagnosis and Treatment in Europe survey which highlights that despite positive developments, the ideal situation in which an individual with ADHD can access the same standard of care and medication wherever they are in the EU, is still very far from reality.
There are different viewpoints on ADHD as a disorder and on its medication in society. Full details of the survey are available here. A summary of the survey is
1) There is an increased awareness of ADHD in adults and the lifelong effects of ADHD in specialists. Unfortunately, there remain circumstances that are in dire need of improvement: Continued long waiting lists for children to access diagnostic services in most member countries; (contrary to the early intervention advice of the NICE ‘gold’ standard).
2) There is continued inadequate provision of health services for adults in many countries (while research shows that untreated ADHD can lead to increased risk self-medication or drug addiction, unemployment, increased traffic accidents, etc) and lack of family clinics where child AND parent can be treated simultaneously (as ADHD is a heritable trait).
3) Some members report increased medication side-effects for minors using generics, others report positive effects. This urgently warrants unbiased research, including research into comparative medication efficacy and treatment adherence with branded and generic medication. National medicine procurement systems may take mainly price into consideration whilst lacking specialist and patient feedback mechanisms (except for extreme physical side-effects). In addition, ‘out of stock’ situations jeopardise especially youths during examination times.
4)National and regional discrepancies exist (especially in rural areas of large countries, island (countries) and Eastern European countries) which are often due to inadequate national funding for mental health service to implement projects and procedures to improve the lives of people with ADHD in their respective communities. Continued cultural “stigma” about ADHD amongst specialists, in the media and the general public. Some member countries even mention that dominant professionals apply a psychoanalytic approach only instead of a multi-modal treatment approach for children and adults with ADHD. There are different viewpoints on ADHD as a disorder and on its medication in society. Full details of the survey are available here.
