Van Leersum grant for international comparative study of medicine use in children with ADHD

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has awarded the Van Leersum grant to Jurjen van der Schans, PhD at the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy (GRIP). He receives the grant for a comparative study of the medicine use of treated and untreated children with ADHD from two different countries. Little is known about the medication use of this vulnerable patient group, while the prescriptions for ADHD drugs differ from country to country due to different diagnostic and treatment policies.

The Van Leersum grants are awarded to promising young researchers in the fields of neurology, radiology and pharmacology. The grant – of up to €6,300 – will enable Van der Schans to conduct research abroad or pay a working visit to a foreign institute.

ADHD medication in the Netherlands and New Zealand
The diagnosis of mental illnesses such as ADHD is based on a spectrum of symptoms, whose classification is still changing. Countries can therefore adopt different diagnostic and treatment policies for ADHD. This leads to ADHD patients being diagnosed and treated differently, and possibly to the prescription of different medicines.
Little is known about the use of medication by this vulnerable patient group. Van der Schans will therefore investigate this in children who are being treated for ADHD and children who do not receive treatment, and by comparing a country in the northern hemisphere (the Netherlands) with a country in the southern hemisphere (New Zealand).

Collaboration in the Northern Netherlands

Van de Schans’s research is a collaboration between the department of Paediatric Allergology of Medical Center Leeuwarden, the department of Paediatric Psychiatry of UMCG Groningen and the Pharmacoepidemiology research group of the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Groningen.

More information about the Van Leersum grant