Nine in Ten Children With ADHD May Experience Symptoms Into Young Adulthood

Up to 90% of children who have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may continue to experience residual symptoms of the disorder into young adulthood even though many have periods of remission along the way, astudy published online today inAJP in Advancesuggests.“The study findings emphasize that childhood-onset ADHD is a chronic but waxing and waning disorder with periods of full remission that are more often temporary than sustained,” wrote Margaret H. Sibley, Ph.D., of the University of Washington School of Medicine and Children’s Research Institut e in Seattle and colleagues. “[Health professionals] should expect recurrence of clinically elevated ADHD symptoms and impairments in most patients who experience remission; continued periodic screening for recurrent symptoms and impairments should therefore be standard practice after successful t reatment.”Sibley and colleagues examined data from 558 participants with ADHD who had participated in the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA) and had at least one follow-up assessment over a 16-year period after initial assessment in the MTA. Follow-up assessments were offered to participants and parents at 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 years after baseline, and participants completed an average of 6.2 of the eight possible follow-up assessments. The average age of the participants who completed the follow-up assessments two years after baseline was 10.44 years, and the average age of participants who complet...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ADHD adult ajp in advance attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder children fluctuating symptoms remission Source Type: research