ADHD medication prescribing and special authority applications
Thank you for your request dated 10 August 2023 under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) for information relating to ADHD medication. You requested:
- Number of patients (unique NHIs) dispensed ADHD medication (methylphenidate, dexamphetamine, atomoxetine) per year from 2018 – 2022. Please break down by age, gender, ethnicity and domiciled DHB.
Use age brackets 0-4, 5-9, 10-14,15-18, 19-24, 25+
- Number of special authority applications and renewals per year 2018-2022. Please break down by age, gender, ethnicity and domiciled DHB.
Use age brackets 0-4, 5-9, 10-14,15-18, 19-24, 25+
We are pleased to provide you with most of the information for your request in the excel spreadsheet attached.
Regarding your second request, special authority data received by Pharmac is only complete for date of birth and gender. For ethnicity and domicile, >90% of data is not available, therefore we have not included this data.
Where 6 or fewer people are counted, we have changed the number to "≤6" as we believe this is necessary to protect the privacy of these people (section 9(2)(a) of the OIA).
We trust that this information answers your queries. Please note, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman about our response to your OIA, under section 28(3) of the OIA. Details of how to make a complaint(external link) are on the Ombudsman’s website.
To make information more freely available, we publish selected OIA responses (excluding personal details) on our website. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this.