{"id":2015,"date":"2026-04-30T07:32:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/2015\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:32:34","slug":"why-was-unique-history-has-it-leading-the-pack-on-adhd-medication-prescriptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Why WA’s unique history has it leading the pack on ADHD medication prescriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perth and southern Western Australia account for seven of Australia’s 10 highest ADHD-prescribing neighbourhoods, raising questions about why rates are so concentrated in the west.<\/p>\n

Nationally, ADHD affects about 2.5 to 3 per cent of adults, but data sourced from the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) shows more than 4 per cent in some Perth areas are being dispensed ADHD medication.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Fremantle area has the highest prevalence of ADHD prescriptions in the nation.\u00a0 (ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch)<\/p>\n

In the year to June 2024, 4.4 per cent of adults in Fremantle and 4.1 per cent in Cottesloe and Claremont filled prescriptions.<\/p>\n

But with a 30 per cent rise in prescriptions filled nationally in the years since, that figure could now be closer to 6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Experts the ABC spoke to say income, education and occupation alone do not explain the trend.<\/p>\n

A look back in history<\/p>\n

“ADHD was really, in many ways, pioneered in WA,” ADHD coach Michele Toner said.<\/p>\n

“There [was] a group of specialists \u2014 multidisciplinary, not just doctors \u2014 and parents who got together in the 1990s to advocate for services.”<\/p>\n

That group later became the advocacy group she chairs, ADHD WA, and she suggested that early advocacy put the state ahead of the curve in recognising the condition.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Michele Toner says early advocacy put WA ahead of the curve in recognising ADHD. (ABC News: Daryna Zadvirna)<\/p>\n

“We’ve worked very hard to educate the public,” Ms Toner said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if people in WA are more neurodivergent \u2014 they often do refer to us as the wild west.”<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, prescriptions of ADHD medication grew more than 20-fold, according to WA Health Department figures.<\/p>\n

How should an ADHD assessment work?<\/a><\/p>\n

Who can diagnose ADHD, what a proper assessment should include, and the red flags to look out for.<\/p>\n

It is estimated that there were 20,648 individuals prescribed stimulant medication by 2000, most of them children.<\/p>\n

In 2001, a parliamentary committee launched an inquiry<\/a> into the “disproportionately” high use of stimulant medication in WA compared to the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n

It found that a shortage of available multidisciplinary health services led to a “medication first model” and economic constraints often inhibited the use of other treatment options.<\/p>\n

The committee recommended that the state government of the day work with the Commonwealth to ensure a full range of public treatment options for ADHD were provided.<\/p>\n

But two decades later, the peak body of psychiatry suggests WA is still lagging in public sector psychiatric services.<\/p>\n

System ‘not been working’<\/p>\n

Some medical professionals the ABC spoke to wanted to share their experience with ADHD patients anonymously.<\/p>\n

One psychiatrist, who runs her own mental health clinic, suggested the children who were put on ADHD medication during that period were now the adults represented in the latest data.<\/p>\n

How an adult ADHD diagnosis should be made:Needs to be made by an appropriately trained and registered practitioner \u2014 at the moment, that mostly means a psychiatrist, psychologist or in Queensland, any GP.They should not rely only on rating scales or observational data.There needs to be a comprehensive assessment of the person’s social and psychological circumstances in multiple environments (e.g., work, home) with a developmental and mental health history going back to childhood, including reports from observers of the person’s life. The clinician needs to be sure there isn’t another cause for the symptoms.A person must have pervasive (meaning in more than one situation) symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity, impulsivity and\/or inattention.Importantly, there needs to be evidence that these symptoms are causing impairment. (Note the last D in ADHD stands for “disorder”.)<\/p>\n

For more details, see: Australian Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline for ADHD<\/a><\/p>\n

Another Perth psychiatrist said eight out of 10 of his patients came in specifically seeking an ADHD assessment.<\/p>\n

He said many had preconceived ideas of what the condition was due to social media.<\/p>\n

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists suggested there were multiple reasons at play.<\/p>\n

The neighbourhoods where ADHD rates are skyrocketing<\/a><\/p>\n

ADHD diagnoses in adults have exploded across Australia since 2017. For the first time, we have the data that shows where it is \u2014 and isn’t \u2014 happening.<\/p>\n

“Our mental health system has to be functioning,” president Astha Tomar said.<\/p>\n

“That system in Western Australia has not been working for some time.”<\/p>\n

WA has one of the lowest numbers of psychiatrists per capita in the nation, and since 2022, it has also had the highest population growth of all states and territories.<\/p>\n

Several psychiatrists the ABC spoke to said the difficulty in getting an in-person appointment \u2014 particularly in rural areas \u2014 meant some relied on telehealth assessments.<\/p>\n

\"Aleem<\/p>\n

HelloDoc director Aleem Khan (left) and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists president Astha Tomar (right). (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Dr Tomar said it meant those rural residents living with ADHD also relied more on medication due to a lack of access to support.<\/p>\n

The rise of telehealth<\/p>\n

General practitioner Brenda Murrison runs several medical centres in WA’s south-west.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While she can see the value of the telehealth model, in particular for regional patients, she has noticed a concerning trend.<\/p>\n

“There are people that have set up entire businesses that just do telehealth psychiatry, do an ADHD prescription \u2026 I can get an appointment tomorrow morning with a psychiatrist online to give me the diagnosis, should I think I’ve got it,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Head<\/p>\n

Brenda Murrison is concerned about people being hastily diagnosed in telehealth consultations. (ABC News: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n

“I have had patients come to me and say that their online appointment lasted for 20 minutes only \u2014 that is not long enough to be safe.”<\/p>\n

Some of those services advertise “fast, easy and stress-free online ADHD tests”.<\/p>\n

“If you suspect either yourself or a loved one may have Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), you’ve come to the right place,” one website said.<\/p>\n

What to know about GPs diagnosing ADHD<\/a><\/p>\n

The way ADHD is diagnosed and managed is changing across the country. Here’s the reason for the change and how it will work in each state and territory.<\/p>\n

But the director of one online clinic, which he says provides two “comprehensive” one-hour session assessments, said his business was filling a crucial gap.<\/p>\n

“There is almost no availability of any public system to support ADHD assessment, diagnosis or management,” said Aleem Khan from HelloDoc.<\/p>\n

“[People] can’t go to the hospital, they can’t go to outpatient, they can’t go to community mental health. So where will they go? Private entities.<\/p>\n

“Whether the private entity is doing the right thing or not, that’s where we need to look at.”Call for greater supports<\/p>\n

Former Labor MLA Martin Whiteley worked with the state government in 2002 to establish the WA Stimulant Regulatory Scheme.<\/p>\n

“It produced annual reports with detailed de-identified information on the prescribing patterns of prescribers,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Martin Whitely has written multiple research papers around ADHD. (ABC News: Daryna Zadvirna)<\/p>\n

Mr Whiteley, who has since conducted multiple research papers around ADHD, said it was an important accountability and monitoring system for “overly enthusiastic prescribers”.<\/p>\n

But annual reporting on stimulant prescribing in WA stopped after 2020.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you’ll get a cluster of GPs that are particularly supportive of a particular regime and therefore you’ll see a localised spike,” WA Premier Roger Cook said last week.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

WA Premier Roger Cook speaking to reporters in Perth. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

“These are the things that the [health] department watches closely to make sure that we don’t get any incidences where there’s an over-prescription of a particular drug.”<\/p>\n

The peak body of psychiatrists, along with the other health professionals the ABC interviewed, say the disparity in data around WA and the nation shows the need to pay closer attention.<\/p>\n

“It is around appropriate care and comprehensive assessments,” Dr Tomar said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Data showed 4.4 per cent of adults in Fremantle had been issued an ADHD prescription.\u00a0 (ABC News: Nicolas Perpitch)<\/p>\n

“It’s also making sure that there is a monitoring of the medication \u2026 because, yes, these are very effective medications, but for any medication, the side effects are equally important.<\/p>\n

“And somewhere in the middle, we have to make sure misdiagnosis is not happening.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perth and southern Western Australia account for seven of Australia’s 10 highest ADHD-prescribing neighbourhoods, raising questions about why…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3148,3160,3158,3155,3159,3153,3152,3154,3149,22,21,3156,3157,3161,3163,3162,1328,1327,463,3164,3151,3150,464],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adhd","tag-adhd-capital","tag-adhd-dexies","tag-adhd-diagnosis","tag-adhd-four-corners","tag-adhd-fremantle","tag-adhd-medication","tag-adhd-western-australia","tag-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-dexamphetamines","tag-dexies","tag-hyperactivity-disorder","tag-medication","tag-mental-health","tag-news-perth","tag-news-wa","tag-perth-news","tag-prescription","tag-ritalin","tag-vyvanse","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}