Buket Öztürk Esen, who defended her PhD thesis today, applied a cohort design using data from the Danish population-based health registries to examine the association between antidepressant use during pregnancy and the risk of ADHD in the offspring. Together with colleagues, Buket conducted two studies, where a wide range of methods including a sibling comparison analysis were used to minimize various types of bias. Combined, the findings from the two studies suggested no association between the use of antidepressants in pregnancy and the risk of ADHD in the offspring.

In a third study, the researchers used simulated data to investigate the strengths and limitations of the sibling comparison analysis. The results underlined the importance of considering a number of steps when using a sibling comparison analysis.