Predicting the Response of Children and Adolescents With ADHD to Methylphenidate: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Objective: To report the characteristics associated with response to methylphenidate (MPH) in children and adolescents with ADHD. Methods: Studies reporting potentials predictors of response to MPH were searched in Medline and Embase from January 1998 to March 2022. Narrative synthesis was performed. Results: Fifty-seven reports of 46 studies totaling 6,656 ADHD patients were included. No association appears between response to MPH and age, gender, MPH dosage, ADHD subtype, comorbidities nor socioeconomic status when considering a specific patient. No conclusion could be drawn about body weight, ADHD severity, intelligence quotient, and parental symptoms of depression or ADHD. Conclusions: None of these potential predictors have proven their usefulness to predict response to MPH on an individual basis in clinical practice. In research, potential predictors should be measured, their association with response to MPH assessed, in order to control for confounding variables when modeling response to MPH.