New paper on burnout as a link between ADHD symptoms and substance use for cognitive enhancement published in Journal of Public Health

Many adults experience symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) without ever receiving a diagnosis. In this paper, we used data from 7,768 employed adults without an ADHD diagnosis from the nationwide ENHANCE study in Germany to examine whether burnout links ADHD symptoms to the use of legal, prescription, and illegal substances for cognitive enhancement. ADHD symptoms were associated with more burnout, and burnout partly mediated the associations between ADHD symptoms and the use of all three substance types. This pathway was most pronounced for legal substances. Our findings are consistent with burnout acting as a stress-related route from ADHD symptoms to risky coping at work, and they suggest that early identification and support for affected employees could reduce reliance on substance-based coping.

Read the paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10389-026-02730-2