On Tuesday 12 May 2020, C.C. Cheung will defend her PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Medication Use in Children and Adolescents. Studies using different information sources’.
Pharmacy records and self-reports are both needed to have a complete overview of medications used during pregnancy, because women may have used medications that are also available over-the-counter (not captured in pharmacy records) and there is the potential of recall bias when using self-reports (chapter 2.1).
Age-related contraindicated medications are still prescribed to children despite the known risks associated with their use. These medications may be prescribed because there are no alternatives available, but we also found that the information about contraindications is limited and not always consistent between multiple information sources (chapter 3.1).
The decision to start therapy with methylphenidate may vary between children born to mothers with a different ethnic background. Not only child’s but also family characteristics play an important role in treatment adherence. Furthermore, differences were found between boys and girls regarding treatment initiation and discontinuation of treatment with methylphenidate (chapter 4.1 and 4.2).
Methylphenidate treatment is often started during childhood and they often continue their treatment when reaching the age of 18 years. Despite the known cardiovascular risks, it was still increasingly prescribed to adults (chapter 4.3).
Finally, we did not find an increased risk of suicide after starting treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, tricyclic antidepressants and other antidepressants compared to past antidepressant use (chapter 5.1).
The PhD defences will not take place publicly in the Senate Hall or Professor Andries Queridoroom due to the coronavirus. The candidates will defend their thesis online.