The epidemiology and societal burden of ADHD

Abstract

Introduction This chapter presents an overview of the voluminous literature on the epidemiology and societal burden of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD has long been known to be a common childhood mental disorder [1, 2], but adult ADHD has been less well studied because it was long assumed that ADHD remits in the transition to adulthood. Clinical follow-up studies have now made it clear, though, that children with ADHD often continue to have symptoms in adulthood and that adults with a history of childhood ADHD have a comparatively high prevalence of other mental disorders that develop subsequent to ADHD [3, 4]. These observations have led to a growing interest in adult ADHD [5], although controversy exists about appropriate diagnostic criteria [6]. Our review focuses separately on child–adolescent and adult ADHD. Childhood and adolescent ADHD Prevalence Several comprehensive reviews exist on the prevalence of childhood and adolescent ADHD [7–9]. Prevalence estimates vary widely from over 20% to less than 1%, but with a central tendency of 4–6%. A recent quantitative analysis of worldwide studies reported a pooled estimate of 5.3% current prevalence (6.5% for children and 2.7% for adolescents) [7]. While most child–adolescent ADHD epidemiological studies have taken place in the USA, Australia, and Europe, more recent studies have been carried out in all regions of the world, both in developed and developing countries (e.g., Farah et al. [10]).