ArticlePsychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors2020
Early substance use in the pathway from childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to young adult substance use: Evidence of statistical mediation and substance specificity.
Article in Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects on alcohol and substance use of a school-based training intervention for adolescents with ADHD.Journal of substance use and addiction treatment · 2025Trial
- Adverse Childhood Experiences and Substance Use: The Mediating Role of Executive Function Deficits.Journal of adolescence · 2026Article
- Retrospectively reported childhood ADHD symptoms and addiction severity in emerging adults with substance use disorders: cross-sectional indirect associations through time perspective.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Self-Reported ADHD Diagnosis and Illicit Drug Use and Prescription Medication Misuse Among U.S. Working-Age Adults.Journal of attention disorders · 2025Article
- ADHD and Alcohol Use Disorder: Optimizing Screening and Treatment in Co-occurring Conditions.CNS drugs · 2025Review
- ADHD and Cannabis Use in College Students: Examining Indirect Effects of Coping Motives.Substance use & misuse · 2025Article
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- ADHD symptoms and use of anabolic androgenic steroids among male weightlifters.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Sex Differences in Substance Use, Prevalence, Pharmacological Therapy, and Mental Health in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).Brain sciences · 2022Review
- Tobacco and ADHD: A Role of MAO-Inhibition in Nicotine Dependence and Alleviation of ADHD Symptoms.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Review
- Methods to Develop anFrontiers in psychiatry · 2021Article
- Beers with Peers: Childhood ADHD and Risk for Correlated Change in Perceived Peer and Personal Alcohol Use Across Young Adulthood.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
This study tested whether early and developmentally atypical substance use mediates risk for adult substance use among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and whether that risk is substance-specific. Participants were children with ADHD previously enrolled in a randomized controlled trial (RCT), and a demographically similar non-ADHD group, assessed at 2 through 16 years after the original RCT baseline. Self-reports of heavy drinking, marijuana use, daily smoking, and other illicit drug use were collected at follow-ups to establish atypically early and frequent use. Models estimated statistically mediated effects of childhood ADHD on adult substance use via early substance involvement, with planned comparisons to evaluate substance specificity. Results supported the mediation hypothesis, showing that childhood ADHD was associated with more frequent adult substance use via early substance involvement for marijuana, cigarettes, illicit drugs, and to a lesser extent, alcohol. Mediation was not escalated by comorbid childhood conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder except for early use of nonmarijuana illicit drugs. Substance-specificity in the mediational pathway was largely absent except for cigarette use, where ADHD-related early smoking most strongly predicted adult daily smoking. Findings from this study provide new evidence that atypically early substance use associated with childhood ADHD signals important cross-drug vulnerability by early adulthood, but cigarette use at a young age is especially associated with increased risk for habitual (daily) smoking specifically. Efforts to prevent, delay, or reduce substance experimentation should occur early and focus on factors relevant to multiple drugs of abuse in this at-risk population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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