There has been little research on the third area of impairment noted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - "occupational functioning." Individuals with ADHD experience job-related impairments including a greater likelihood of being unemployed and not enrolled in school and for those that were employed they were in a lower status occupation, relative to typically-developing comparison peers. The current literature on analogue workplace settings and the effects of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate includes office-based tasks similar to school seat work. Unfortunately, this is inconsistent with the typical work environment most common for individuals with disabilities such as ADHD where food preparation is the most common job following high school. Therefore, medication effects in this type of setting, most common for individuals with ADHD entering the workforce, need to be studied. The investigators propose to study workplace behavior in an analogue work setting in a laboratory "pizza place." Individuals with ADHD will participate in an interview with a supervisor each day, have a list of deliveries that need to be managed, deal with situations that require occupational judgment and appropriate customer service, and drive to make deliveries accurately and on-time. These behaviors can be reliably assessed within the laboratory. Twenty young adults will participate in two "workdays" within a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design wherein participants will be administered placebo and .3 mg/kg lisdexamfetamine dimesylate in a counter-balanced order.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
TRIPLE
Enrollment
22
Lisdexamfetamine Dimesylate 40 MG administered orally
Placebo capsule administered orally
SUNY at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, United States
Ratings of Job Application Quality
Three independent coders will review each de-identified application. Following the review of the application, coders will complete a rating form that asks them to make an overall evaluation regarding whether the person was an acceptable job candidate for an interview using a scale of 1 ("definitely not") to 5 ("definitely"). Average rating across coders will be used as the dependent measure.
Time frame: during interventional study session, 1 day in duration
Ratings of Job Interview Performance
Three coders who are unaware of the study participant identities or group status will view the job interview videotape and completed a form. Raters will provide a rating of their overall impression of the interview behavior ranging from a score of one (Poor) to four (Outstanding). The average score of the coders will be utilized as a dependent measure.
Time frame: during interventional study session, 1 day in duration
Objective Observation of Workplace Productivity
The dependent measures from this aspect of the study are the number of items completed correctly out of the total number of assigned items (i.e., 225). Thus, the score reflects the percentage of items correctly completed out of the 225 assigned and scores could range from 0-100.
Time frame: during interventional study session, 1 day in duration
Inattentive/Overactive Rating
In addition to ratings of the interview performance, the rater also will complete the five-item inattentive/overactive (I/O) factor of the Iowa Conners rating scale (Atkins, Pelham, \& Licht, 1989; Loney \& Milich, 1982; Pelham, Milich, Murphy, \& Murphy, 1989). The five items are rated on a scale of Not at all (0) to Very Much (3) and the sum of these items represents the score. The dependent measure will be the score averaged across raters. Scores can range from 0-3 on each item, and the average score of the 5 items was used. Higher scores reflect greater inattentive/overactivity-related behaviors.
Time frame: during interventional study session, 1 day in duration
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