Licensing and motor vehicle crash risk among teens with ADHD
The defining symptoms of ADHD (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) have been linked to unsafe driving behaviors. Allison E. Curry, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and coauthors linked electronic health records to New Jersey traffic safety databases for more than 18,000 primary care patients of the CHOP health care network born from 1987 to 1997. Study analyses were restricted to 2,479 adolescents and young adults with ADHD and 15,865 without ADHD who had at least one full month of follow-up after becoming age-eligible for licensure, which in New Jersey is at the minimum age of 17. Compared with individuals without ADHD, the probability that individuals with ADHD would be licensed six months after eligibility was 35 percent lower. Newly licensed drivers with ADHD also had a 36 percent higher first crash risk than those without ADHD. Among those individuals with a driver's license, 764 of 1,785 with ADHD (42.8 percent) and 4,715 of...