Attention Deficit and Hyperactvitiy Disorder (ADHD)
SCRS POLICY FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER (ADHD)
Students presenting to SCRS who have been previously diagnosed with ADHD must provide documentation of this diagnosis from the clinician or clinicians that made the diagnosis in order to receive medication treatment from SCRS. These students should have their clinicians send us their medical record so that we can review it to see if the documentation is adequate (i.e., an evaluation, treatment summary, progress notes and/or a neuropsychological assessment supporting the diagnosis). If, for whatever reason, we feel that the workup done outside was inadequate to make the diagnosis, we will not prescribe medication for that student until we have completed our own diagnostic protocol.
Students presenting to SCRS who feel that they might have ADHD will need to go through our diagnostic protocol before they will have an appointment with a psychiatrist to discuss the possibility of medication treatment. They will be referred to this protocol from intake. The protocol will involve several appointments and will include an assessment via semi-structured interview, followed by a series of neuropsychological tests. We anticipate this protocol taking several weeks.
Students who are concerned with gaining accommodations should contact the disabilities office http://disabilities.uchicago.edu/ . Our diagnostic protocol is not sufficient to meet required criteria for accommodation, and is being used exclusively for our own diagnostic purposes in an effort to best serve students.
If, after this process is complete, it is the opinion of the evaluators that the student might indeed have ADHD, an appointment with one of the SCRS psychiatrists will be made and the data from the diagnostic protocol will be provided to the psychiatrist. The decision of whether to medicate and what kind of medication to use will be made by the psychiatrist. It is our policy to choose the appropriate medication with the least potential for abuse. The student may continue to be followed for medication here at SCRS as long as they are a registered student in the University.
