ADHD Affects Rising Number of Youth

Nine percent of U.S. children aged 5–17 were diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) between 2007 and 2009, an increase of more than 2 percent from the number of diagnoses made between 1998 and 2000. These are the findings of a new study released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

For the study, Lara Akinbami, M.D. and her colleagues at NCHS’s Office of Analysis and Epidemiology compared more than a decade’s worth of data from the National Health Interview Survey. The researchers noted that ADHD increases were recorded for both boys and girls, with variations among race and ethnicity narrowing over the years.

Read more about ADHD diagnosis and treatment around the world in Psychiatric News at http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/11/20.1.full. More detailed information about ADHD can be found in the new fourth edition of Concise Guide to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, available at www.appi.org/SearchCenter/Pages/SearchDetail.aspx?ItemId=62416#. 

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