International Collaboration on ADHD and Substance Abuse (ICASA): Mission, studies, results, and plans

In 2005 the International Collaboration on ADHD and Substance Abuse (ICASA) was founded with the following mission: to contribute to decrease the proportion of ADHD patients developing a substance use disorder (SUD) and to improve the detection, diagnosis and treatment of patients with ADHD and SUD. 

In order to fulfill its mission ICASA (1) strives to use its network to improve access to researchers, clinicians and patients for research; (2) tries to stimulate research related to this topic using a consistent set of research instruments; (3) exchanges knowledge on 'ADHD and SUD' within and outside the ICASA network;  and (4) performs studies and publish its research findings in peer reviewed Journals and presents the results at (inter)national conferences.

Currently, ICASA has 59 participants from 29 centers in 17 countries from 5 continents. 

Meanwhile, ICASA has conducted four studies, published more than 20 international, peer-reviewed papers, and two published consensus statements. Most of these activities were related to the second part of our mission: to improve the detection, diagnosis and treatment of patients with ADHD and SUD. Our plans for the coming years will be mainly directed at the first part of our mission: to decrease the proportion of ADHD patients developing SUD.

In this presentation, I will describe the structure of ICASA and its working principles and summarize the main findings from our studies and their clinical relevance.