Better primary health outcomes

In many cases, GPs are sympathetic to the needs of people with ADHD and work collaboratively with their patients. But that’s by no means the rule – despite many sympathetic and understanding GPs, there are some who fail to understand adults with ADHD. And in some cases, this minority seem to go out of their way to make life more difficult for their patients.

Sadly, our community is awash in bad stories about GPs. We’ve heard of GPs stating that ADHD is not a diagnosable condition, despite its inclusion in DSM V, based solely on their personal beliefs – and some of them have described the very real challenges of ADHD as just poor personal discipline or a bad attitude.

We’ve heard about the refusal of some GPs to refer patients to psychiatrists for formal diagnosis, again based on their personal beliefs and (clearly) a very limited understanding of ADHD in adults, particularly women. In some cases, patients have been mis-diagnosed with anxiety and depression and given medications that make their lives worse – despite ADHD being glaringly obvious.

Once a psychiatrist has diagnosed ADHD and has prescribed ADHD medications, some GPs seem to treat their patients like potential or actual drug addicts. People report repeated accusations by GPs that adults with ADHD are merely drug seekers, and GPs threatening to withdraw essential ADHD stimulant medication to coerce behaviours from patients, including the requirement for no-notice drug tests. If you tell some GPs you have ADHD, they seem to assume you’re likely to be a criminal.

And despite a formal diagnosis by a psychiatrist, some GPs take it on themselves to to deprive patients of their essential medications, arbitrarily decrease dosage regimes, refuse to alter dosages when asked to, and in a few cases have attenpted to “wean” adults with ADHD off their prescribed medication.

To state the obvious, this isn’t good enough. So we’re working with the Health and Disability Commission and the Medical Council on some improvements to the way these problematic GPs think about ADHD and how they treat their patients.