Adult ADD/Adult ADHD: How Common Is It?
In reviewing how common adult ADD/ADHD is, we can look at it from two angles. The first is ‘ADHD kids grown up’, and the second is the rates of adults with ADD/ADHD.
We know reliably that ADHD occurs in about 5-7% of children. We also know that about 70% of those individuals carry on with their ADHD into adult life. So, we’re talking about approximately 3-4% of adults having ADHD.
Research was recently published documenting results of an epidemiological study. An epidemiological study is one which looks at rates of disorders in the community. It was very well designed and the results can be trusted. It documented that 4.4% of the American adult population have Adult ADD/ADHD. This type of study has not been done in other countries or cultures, but it is nonetheless a very important study to understand the rates of adult ADD/ADHD.
Now, we don’t recognize and treat 4.4% of adults in the general American population with ADHD so there are a lot of people out there who don’t know about this. This relates to the fact that recognizing and treating Adult ADHD is still in its infancy.
It is really only about the past 10-15 years that research about Adult ADHD has become more common, and that practitioners are recognizing that ADHD can go beyond 18 years of age.
Where are all of the adults with ADHD who aren’t diagnosed or treated?
Some are very successful - if they have learned to harness their creativity and energy for their own success.
Some are doing reasonably well, but struggling more than they should.
Some are doing very poorly, with multiple difficulties.
From a doctor’s perspective - I expect that we will find many of the adults with Adult ADHD in the other psychiatric clinics. Research shows that about 80% of adults with ADHD have at least one other co-existing (the medical term for this is ‘comorbid’) disorder, and 60% have two or more disorders.
Which disorders come with Adult ADHD?
It can really be almost any psychiatric disorder - but it is commonly mood disorders like depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorders, etc.
I hope that the adult psychiatrists will learn more about adult ADHD, and start to include it as part of their assessments, particularly when dealing with individuals with difficult to treat mood disorders, anxiety disorders or substance use disorders.
One final comment - the fact that two different research sets show the same rate of adult ADD/ADHD is very strong data. By this I mean that if we use the rates of kids with ADHD grown up - we start with about 7%, and then only 70% still have it, yielding a rate of 4-5%. The recent epidemiological study gave a rate of 4.4%. Thus this number is reached by two different lines of research. This makes the finding that much stronger, because it is from ‘converging data’. This means that two separate research approaches yielded the same results. Very strong data indeed, meaning that we can be confident in the results.
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Written by Dr. Kenny Handelman - The ADHD Doctor
To find get a FREE special report on ADD/ADHD Medication, visit: Medication Mastery
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May 12th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
The recent epidemiological study gave a rate of 4.4%. Thus this number is reached by two different lines of research. This makes the finding that much stronger,