Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
Our findings suggest that geographic location plays a limited role in the reasons for the large variability of ADHD/HD prevalence estimates worldwide. Instead, this variability seems to be explained primarily by the methodological characteristics of studies.
The WHO Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) has 18 questions about recent ADHD symptoms, and a shorter six-question screener was tested against blind clinical diagnoses in 154 people from the US National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Each ASRS item was linked to the clinical rating, but agreement varied a lot across…
This U.S. study used a nationally representative household survey of 3,199 adults aged 18–44, plus clinical follow-up interviews, to measure adult ADHD. Researchers estimated that 4.4% of adults had current ADHD. Adult ADHD was more common in men, people who were previously married, those who were unemployed, and non-Hispanic white…
This review looked at research on emotion dysregulation (problems managing emotions) in people with ADHD. It found three main points: emotion dysregulation is common across the lifespan and causes substantial problems; it may come from trouble noticing, recognizing, or paying attention to emotional cues tied to a brain circuit that…
This review says adult ADHD affects about 2.5% of adults and often occurs with other mental health problems. Adults with ADHD commonly have trouble with attention, memory, planning, self-control, and emotions. The condition is often missed or undertreated, is linked with big personal and social problems, and the evidence on…
In a 2003 survey, 500 adults who said a clinician had diagnosed them with ADHD were compared with 501 age- and gender-matched people from a U.S. national sample. Adults reporting ADHD were less likely to finish high school or college, less likely to be employed, had more job changes, and…
The authors pooled results from 61 cross-sectional studies to estimate how common ADHD is in children and adolescents worldwide. They found a pooled prevalence of 7.6% (95% CI 6.1–9.4%) in children aged 3–12 (from 96,907 children) and 5.6% (95% CI 4.8–7%) in adolescents aged 12–18. Prevalence estimates varied by age…
This ADDA article explains ADHD masking — when people hide or copy others to appear "normal." Masking can help someone function but often uses a lot of mental and emotional energy. The article says masking can delay diagnosis, cause burnout or mood problems, and may help explain why women are…
The paper says the modern DSM-IV-TR idea of ADHD is relatively new, but people with symptoms like inattention, restlessness, and impulsivity were described more than 200 years ago. For example, Sir Alexander Crichton in 1798 wrote about children who could not keep their attention on one thing and were easily…
Researchers used PET brain scans to compare dopamine reward-system markers in 45 adults with ADHD and 41 adults without ADHD. People with ADHD scored lower on an Achievement scale (a stand-in measure for motivation), and in the ADHD group those lower scores were linked to lower availability of dopamine D2/D3…
This study reexamined gender differences in adult ADHD by comparing 219 adults with ADHD to 215 control subjects matched for age and gender. The researchers found no evidence that gender changed how ADHD related to other psychiatric disorders. Adults with ADHD showed cognitive deficits and higher rates of major depression,…
Brain imaging studies (fMRI) show that ADHD is linked to problems in many brain networks that control attention, timing, working memory, motivation, and emotion. There is also evidence that a brain system normally quiet during tasks (the default mode network) does not switch off properly in people with ADHD. Some…
