ARTICLES
Diagnostic Continuity Between Child and Adolescent ADHD: Findings From a Longitudinal Clinical Sample

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ABSTRACT

Objective

To determine whether there are differences in the clinical expression and correlates of attention-deficit hyper-activity disorder (ADHD) between children and adolescents.

Method

Subjects were 6− to 17-year old Caucasian, non-Hispanic boys with and without ADHD. DSM-III-R structured diagnostic interviews, psychometric measures, and blind raters assessed psychiatric diagnoses, intellectual performance, social disability, school failure, and family functioning.

Results

Children and adolescents with ADHD had an almost identical pattern of correlates in multiple domains of assessment including psychosocial adversity and comorbidity with conduct, mood, and anxiety disorders. Although the rate of substance abuse differed in comparison between child and adolescent subjects, this was independent of ADHD status.

Conclusions

These findings document the diagnostic continuity of ADHD between childhood and adolescence and support the inclusion of adolescent samples in ADHD research protocols. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1998, 37(3):305–313.

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      Four years later, the comorbidity rate was 75%. This rate was higher than those found in other studies: 46.4% (Kessler et al., 2005), 46.6% (Cak et al., 2013), and 50% (Biederman et al. 1998). Such difference could perhaps be explained by samples characteristics, since in this study the patients were selected from a center specialized in ADHD treatment, a reference in the area, thus potentially composed by patients with more severe form of the illness searching treatment.

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    This work was supported in part by NIMH grant RO1 MH41314-08 (Dr. Biederman).

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