ADHD kids often suffer from other mental ailments: Study

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDFeb 8 2011

As many as two thirds of American children suffering from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, also suffer other mental health and developmental conditions, such as learning disabilities and anxiety says a new study.

The results from the study that examined nearly 62,000 children aged 6 to 17 found that those with ADHD had higher odds than others of repeating a grade at school and dealing with strained social and family relationships. The data comes from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health. Also children from poor families were nearly four times as likely as affluent children to suffer from multiple conditions associated with ADHD, which also include conduct disorder, depression and speech problems, among others, the study said.

Study author Kandyce Larson, a research associate at the Center for Healthier Children, Families & Communities at the University of California, Los Angeles, said, “This is a really striking finding that I don’t think has been documented before.” The study is reported in Feb. 7 issue of the journal Pediatrics.

ADHD characterized by impulsiveness and difficulty staying focused, is one of the most common cognitive and behavioral disorders diagnosed in school-age children affecting at least 8% US children.

Larson and her team interviewed patents and studied the children. In total, 67 percent of youngsters with ADHD had at least one other reported mental health or neurodevelopmental disorder, compared with 11 percent of unaffected American children. Eighteen percent had three or more additional conditions, the study authors said. About 30% of children from low-income homes had three or more complicating conditions in addition to their ADHD, compared to just 8% of children from more affluent homes.

Richard Milich, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky commended the study team at its effort but pointed out that all the data came from parental reporting, which he considers a limitation. He said, “Is this reality or parental perception? A dysfunctional mother may find a child multiply impaired because she may not be able to handle it.” He, with his 35 years of studying ADHD said, “I’m not especially surprised that the more comorbidities they have, the worse the outcome is… It’s extremely rare to see a kid with ADHD and nothing else.”

Larson added that many children are “slipping between the cracks of care” adding, “This really suggests we need to be doing more, to have more proactive treatment strategies and support for families… Treatment does need to be more individually tailored…and the findings show a need for greater integration of services between health, mental health and social services across sectors.”

Susanna Visser, the lead epidemiologist for the Child Development Studies Team in the National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC in Atlanta said, “The impact of ADHD on American families is significant… The depth of that is really felt in terms of impact to family functioning to school and social functioning.” For example, more than 80% of children who had three or more other conditions along with their ADHD had problems in school, and nearly half of them had repeated a grade. Visser and her team published a study in 2010 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that found that the number of U.S. children aged 7-14 whose parents reported that they were diagnosed with ADHD had increased from 7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007.

These findings, say experts need to be kept in mind in wake of the recently announced new mental health strategy for England that promised an extra £400m for therapies, such as counseling, to increase access to them by 60% by 2015.