Does Adult ADHD always have a childhood onset?
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- Last Updated on Thursday, 07 April 2016 21:51
A New Zealand study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry (1) questions the current assumption that all adults with ADHD can point to evidence or diagnosis of ADHD as a child. DSM 5 specifies a requirement of onset before the age of 12 years.
The study drew on a sample of 1037 individuals born in Dunedin NZ in 1972 and 1973 and followed them until they were 38 years old. The study claims a high 94% retention rate. The study identified individuals diagnosed with ADHD as children and as adults. The study confirmed previous results such as (a) ADHD was found in 6% of children (predominantly male), and (b) ADHD was found in 3% of adults (evenly spread by gender).
The suprise result was that 90% of the adult ADHD group did not have evidence of childhood ADHD. The group of children with ADHD did not overlap with the group of adults diagnosed with ADHD. The diagnosis of adult ADHD applied DSM 5 criteria except the age onset rule because that was something the study sort to measure.
These findings need to be tested and replicated in further studies. If they are found to stand the specification of ADHD may need to be revisited and its classification in DSM 5 reviewed. Further study could identify differences between adult and childhood ADHD and their aetiology.
Sources
(1) Am J Psychiatry. 2015 Oct 1;172(10):967-77. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14101266. Epub 2015 May 22. View abstract here.
(2) Adults with ADHD may not have had onset of disorder in childhood. Moffitt TE. AJP In Advance. 2015; doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14101266. Downloaded from healio.com.
