Australian Guidelines

At present there are no nationally agreed and endorsed ADHD guidelines in Australia. In 2006 the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP) were funded to update the ADHD Guidelines previously approved by the National Health and Medical Research Council in 1997. The RACP conducted an extensive analysis of relevant research into key aspects of ADHD, including assessment and diagnosis, psychosocial, medication and educational management and socioeconomic considerations. These Guidelines which were completed in 2009, were developed in accordance with National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guideline development requirements by a multidisciplinary expert reference group and provide a series of sensible evidence based recommendations in a novel and very helpful question and answer format. Unfortunately these guidelines were never endorsed by the NHMRC for a series of political reasons focused around the potential for conflict of interests not only of those developing the guidelines but also of those who produced the evidence. Since then there have been a series of position papers and statements from the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and a relatively brief set of “Clinical Practice Points on the Diagnosis, Assessment and Management of ADHD in Children and Adolescents” produced by the NHMRC. The newly created Australian ADHD Professionals Association (AAPA) has as one of its core aims the updating of the 2009 guidelines and is in discussion with the Australian Government about the process for this. In this session I will highlight some of the issues raised by the Australian guidelines and think about the way forward to ensure that future guidelines are well integrated into international best practice but also culturally sentitive and applicable to all cultures within Australia and our health system.