Effect of Methylphenidate on Growth in Children with ADHD: A Systematic Review

Thirty-three clinical studies were incorporated into this systematic review and meta-analysis examining the impact of methylphenidate on physical growth. The document, authored by Minxin Cao and published on figshare in May 2026, analyzes pre- and post-treatment measurements of height, weight, and BMI Z-scores. Meta-analysis results indicate small but significant reductions in growth parameters for children and adolescents with ADHD receiving MPH monotherapy.

Use Cases

• Conducting meta-analyses on drug side effects based on aggregated clinical study results
• Informing clinical guidelines for growth monitoring based on synthesized evidence of methylphenidate's impact
• Identifying research gaps in pediatric pharmacology based on the review's conclusions about study heterogeneity

Strengths

• Includes 33 clinical studies, with 16 rated as high quality
• Employs standardized quality assessment tools (Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, RoB 2.0, GRADE)
• Reports specific meta-analysis results with confidence intervals and I² statistics for heterogeneity

Limitations

• The dataset is a single 656.8 KB DOCX file, limiting direct computational analysis
• Row count and column-level data structure are unknown
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic literature review and meta-analysis of studies from Cochrane Library, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science.

Time Range

Literature search conducted up to December 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-11 05:28:14; freshness should be verified