Written by: Peter Fallesen and Christopher Wildeman

Children who are placed in care at some point during their childhood are much more likely to have been diagnosed with ADHD than other children. This study uses Danish register data on care placements and use of medicines to investigate whether medical treatment of ADHD has any effect on the risk of children being placed in care. Since the final years of the 1990s, there has been an increasing tendency to prescribe medicines which stimulate the central nervous system for Danish children diagnosed with ADHD. At the same time, the probability of Danish children being placed in care fell by nearly 50 percent between 1998 and 2010. The study establishes the extent to which the increase in medical treatment led to the fall in the likelihood of children being placed in care.