OBJECTIVE: The paper seeks to know the reality of the prescriptions for the attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. METHOD: Non-systematic review of the descriptors "attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder" and "medication prescriptions", in Portuguese and in English similar. The limiters were: 10 years publishings until November 2008, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese languages, in Medline, SciELO, Lilacs, Specialized Areas and Cochrane data base. The articles concerning the drug illicit use and clinical aspects have not been used. RESULTS: Eight items were dealt with: prescriptions system, socio-cultural characteristics and health systems that have influence on the prescriptions, medication use span, increasing prescriptions, common aspects, dosage and prescription to below 5 years old children. CONCLUSIONS: Some aspects are worrying, such as the low adhesion to the medical treatments, relatively low average doses and psychostimulants increasing prescriptions even for children up to 3 years old. Social characteristics and the health system used by the affected ones give origin to great variations on the clinical practice. An interesting issue is the evidence that the Brazilian prescriptions system isn't the most restrictive one.
Attention deficit; prescriptions drugs; therapy
