{"id":190878,"date":"2026-03-14T00:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190878\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:02:15","slug":"adhd-medication-shortage-cannot-keep-up-with-students-needs-student-health-services-says-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190878\/","title":{"rendered":"ADHD medication shortage cannot keep up with students&#8217; needs, Student Health Services says | News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"A Shortage on ADHD Medicine Compromise the UCF Pharmacy 1\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full default\" width=\"1662\" height=\"1247\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>The UCF Student Health Services pharmacy posted an alert to its website regarding an ADHD medication\u00a0shortage, stating that the inventory is not enough to meet UCF student demand.\u00a0College students with ADHD are estimated to be around 2% to 8% in the national average, according to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC3441934\/#:~:text=Prevalence%20of%20ADHD%20in%20College,)%20have%20ADHD%20%5B2%5D.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">National Library of Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                                    Courtesy of UCF Student<br \/>\nHealth Services<\/p>\n<p>Students may face difficulty getting prescription medication for\u00a0attention-deficit\/hyperactivity disorder at the pharmacy on campus,\u00a0as <a href=\"https:\/\/studenthealth.ucf.edu\/services\/pharmacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Student Health Services<\/a>\u00a0at UCF is experiencing a shortage.<\/p>\n<p>SHS posted\u00a0an alert on its website about a shortage of ADHD medication in the pharmacy, which could affect students who take it daily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStudent Health Services (SHS) pharmacy is at a critical point with ADHD medications where inventory is not enough to meet the demands of UCF students,\u201d the website alert said. \u201cSHS receives a minimal sporadic supply of these medications, if at all, and our pharmacy is subjected to daily, weekly and monthly quotas of controlled ADHD medications.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ADHD medication\u00a0shortage has been ongoing since Oct.\u00a012, 2022, when the Federal Drug Administration released the formulation of amphetamine mixed salts, commonly referred to by the brand name Adderall or Adderall IR,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/drugs\/drug-safety-and-availability\/fda-announces-shortage-adderall#:~:text=On%20October%2012,%202022,%20FDA,strengths%20that%20are%20still%20available.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to an FDA report<\/a>\u00a0from August 2023. This shortage affected nearly 2.8 million kids ages 5 to 17, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/adhd\/data\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according to a CDC report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>ADHD can have different impacts depending on the person, explained Aaron Centeno, a junior psychology major who has ADHD.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have hyperactive-type ADHD, and it\u2019s something that makes it really difficult for me to concentrate,\u201d Centeno said.\u00a0\u201cSomeone with a more severe form of it will obviously experience more consequences, so I see it as negative when this happens, especially in the academic setting, where you can\u2019t concentrate in class, be involved in a thousand things at once or focus on studying.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In October 2025, the Drug Enforcement Administration\u2019s production quota for d-amphetamine was increased from 21.2 million grams to 26.5 million grams,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medfinder.com\/blog\/adderall-ir-shortage-update-what-patients-need-to-know-in-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to MedFinder.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In January 2026, the DEA finalized production quotas for 2026, including an additional 14.3% increase for DL-amphetamine. Several generic manufacturers have expanded production capacity, according to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medfinder.com\/blog\/adderall-ir-shortage-update-what-patients-need-to-know-in-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MedFinder.<\/a> Despite the DEA\u2019s efforts to increase medicine production, the shortage persists nationwide, as reflected in the SHS pharmacy notification.<\/p>\n<p>The shortage can be explained by multiple factors, including manufacturers&#8217; inability to keep up\u00a0with the production of the medicine,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.medfinder.com\/blog\/adderall-ir-shortage-update-what-patients-need-to-know-in-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to MedFinder.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Dr.\u00a0Yung Nguyen-Siddiqi, interim executive director\u00a0of SHS and assistant professor of medicine\u00a0at the UCF College of Medicine, said the DEA regulates the distribution of medicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere have been manufacturing issues,&#8221; Nguyen-Siddiqi said.\u00a0\u201cManufacturers may not be able to obtain the ingredients needed to make ADHD medication. And then also because ADHD medications usually are stimulants, they are controlled substances. So the DEA has put a limit on how much can be made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Angeles Malave Colon, junior psychology major, said UCF staff should be paying attention to this situation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, on a daily basis, it affects everything: concentration, short-term memory, organization, staying on track\u2014all of that is impacted,\u201d Malave said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMedication acts as a regulator; without it, people may experience impulsivity and a lack of concentration, significantly impacting areas like studying and working. The whole idea of \u200b\u200ba university is for its students to feel comfortable, heard and accepted. Without medication, the academic performance of your student population with ADHD can be severely hampered,\u201d Malave added.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the shortage, the pharmacy&#8217;s solution is to work on a dosage that works for each student, Nguyen-Siddiqi said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe work with our patients here to get the closest, most appropriate medication for them,\u201d\u00a0Nguyen-Siddiqi said.\u00a0\u201cAnd there are months where we may have to even switch your medication to something else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the shortage is still ongoing at the UCF Pharmacy, any updates can be found on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/studenthealth.ucf.edu\/services\/pharmacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SHS<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/studenthealth.ucf.edu\/services\/pharmacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UCF Student Health Services pharmacy posted an alert to its website regarding an ADHD medication\u00a0shortage, stating that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[115,139,141,140,1810],"class_list":["post-190878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science_and_health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}