A new online tool is designed to help families and clinicians make informed treatment decisions.
The most extensive assessment so far of available ADHD treatments reports that medication for both children and adults, along with cognitive behavioral therapy for adults, continues to show the strongest performance. These approaches are supported by the most reliable short-term clinical trial data.
A research team from the Université Paris Nanterre (France), the Institut Robert-Debré du Cerveau de l’Enfant (France), and the University of Southampton (UK) examined more than 200 meta-analyses that explored various treatment methods, participant groups, and clinical outcomes. Their findings were published in The BMJ on November 27, 2025.
The project received funding through public and peer-reviewed grants from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France), the France 2030 program (France), and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (UK).
To support people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and the clinicians who guide their care, the researchers have also launched an interactive website that lays out the review’s results and the evidence behind each treatment in a clear, accessible format (ebiadhd-database.org).
Addressing Confusion About Treatment Options
“We know that people with ADHD and their families are often overwhelmed by conflicting messages about which treatments work,” says Professor Samuele Cortese, an NIHR Research Professor at the University of Southampton and senior lead author on the paper.
“We believe this study and the accompanying website provide the most authoritative, evidence-based, and accessible guidance currently available.
“The Evidence-Based Interventions for ADHD website provides freely available, evidence-based, and continuously updated information in an easy-to-understand way. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first platform in the world to do so based on such a rigorous synthesis of the available evidence.”
Overall, five medications in children and adolescents, and two medications and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in adults were shown to be effective while supported by a relatively robust evidence base. Critically, all this evidence was limited to the short-term, despite long-term treatment being common in clinical practice.
Promising but Understudied
Treatments like acupuncture, mindfulness, and exercise showed promise, but the evidence supporting their use was of a low quality due to small numbers of participants and risk of bias. The limitations applied to studies evaluating cognitive behavioral therapy in children and adolescents, as well as research on the long-term effects of mindfulness in adults, although mindfulness was the only intervention to demonstrate large beneficial effects at extended follow-up.
Dr. Corentin Gosling, Associate Professor at the Paris Nanterre University and first lead author of the study, says: “Long waiting lists for mental health services are a major issue. Having incorrect information about treatments can make people’s journeys even more difficult, by wasting time and money on non-evidence-based approaches, for example.
“By contrast, taking the time to review all treatment options within a shared decision-making process using the web app we developed can empower people with ADHD, leading to better treatment adherence, improved outcomes, and an overall better patient experience.”
The findings generally complement current international clinical guidelines, not only by providing convenient access to current high-quality evidence, but also by covering interventions not usually mentioned in clinical guidelines.
The team hope this new project will achieve a similar impact in influencing clinical guidelines and practice as their previous project, which looked at treatments for autism.
Reference: “Benefits and harms of ADHD interventions: umbrella review and platform for shared decision making” by Corentin J Gosling, Miguel Garcia-Argibay, Michele De Prisco, Gonzalo Arrondo, Anaël Ayrolles, Stéphanie Antoun, Serge Caparos, Ana Catalán, Pierre Ellul, Maja Dobrosavljevic, Luis C Farhat, Giovanna Fico, Luis Eudave, Annabeth P Groenman, Mikkel Højlund, Lucie Jurek, Mikail Nourredine, Vincenzo Oliva, Valeria Parlatini, Constantina Psyllou, Gonzalo Salazar-de-Pablo, Anneka Tomlinson, Samuel J Westwood, Andrea Cipriani, Christoph U Correll, Dong Keon Yon, Henrik Larsson, Edoardo G Ostinelli, Jae Il Shin, Paolo Fusar-Poli, John P A Ioannidis, Joaquim Radua, Marco Solmi, Richard Delorme and Samuele Cortese, 27 November 2025, BMJ.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2025-085875
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2 Comments
“Critically, all this evidence was limited to the short-term, despite long-term treatment being common in clinical practice.” Meta-analyses of limited data give limited conclusions.
A real problem with these mind-affecting drugs is that they are very hard to stop taking. They alter brain chemistry and people become addicted, and withdrawals are terrible. The same goes for SSRI and SNRI medications. People are given these drugs to try, and they take weeks to start working, if they do. And if there are significant side effects you need to still take them to taper off slowly, to minimize side effects, which are often very disturbing. This is medically-sanctioned drug addiction. And the cause of the ADHD or anxiety/depression is never addressed, except by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.
This review highlights how central medication and behavioural interventions remain in ADHD care.
In institutional settings (universities, workplaces), we often see a parallel need: structured, non-clinical support focused specifically on executive functioning — planning, prioritising, sustaining effort, and reducing overwhelm.
Clinical care and skills-based coaching serve different but complementary purposes. As systems look for scalable support models, that distinction becomes important.