Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in an Anxiety Disorders Population

Abstract

Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a life-long, chronic disorder, which has its onset in childhood and is associated with significant functional impairment. ADHD appears to be highly comorbid with other psychiatric disorders, however, literature is lacking concerning ADHD/anxiety comorbidity. To that end, we examined the prevalence of ADHD in an anxiety disorder sample. Consecutive patients referred to an anxiety disorders clinic completed a variety of anxiety disorder self-report measures as well as the Adult ADHD self-report scale and were clinically assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, and the ADHD module of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Of the 129 patients assessed, the rate of adult ADHD was 27.9%. The mean age of the sample was 33.1 ± 12.5 years, and the mean baseline CGI-S was 4.6 ± 1.1 (moderate to marked severity). The majority of the sample was female (63.6%) and single (49.5%). The most common comorbid disorders associated with ADHD were major depressive disorder (53.8%), social phobia (38.5%), generalized anxiety disorder (23.1%), and impulse control disorders (30.8%). Individuals with ADHD had higher symptom severity scores for obsessive-compulsive disorder, (P≤ 0.05) and for GAD (P≤ 0.05) and reported a significantly earlier age of onset for depression as compared to those without (P≤ 0.05). The prevalence of adult ADHD was higher in our anxiety disorders clinic sample than found in the general population. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

Developmental comorbidity in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

“…three times greater than expected, averaging 25% in epidemiological and clinical studies (Angold et al 1999;Jensen et al 1997;Jarrett and Ollendick et al 2008;Ollendick et al 2008;Van Ameringen et al 2010). In a sample of children from a paediatric primary care practice, approx.…”

The relationship of social anxiety disorder symptoms with probable attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in Turkish university students; impact of negative affect and personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion

“…Among patients with anxiety disorder, rate of childhood ADHD risk was 24.0% (n=36) (Mancini et al, 1999), whereas adult ADHD was 27.9% (n=36) (Van Ameringen et al, 2011). Mancini et al (1999) was the first group to evaluate this relationship, whom reported that 12 of 34 patients with SAD (35.2%) were found to have childhood ADHD.…”

“…Also, childhood ADHD was associated with earlier onset of anxiety disorder, higher number of comorbidity (anxiety, mood, or substance use disorders), and more severe anxiety and depression symptoms. Van Ameringen et al (2011) reported a 38.5% SAD comorbidity in adult patients with ADHD. In other two studies conducted with smaller sample of patients with SAD, Safren et al (2001) found the rate of childhood ADHD as 3% in 33 SAD patients, whereas Mörtberg et al (2012) found the childhood symptoms of ADHD as 7.8% in 39 SAD patients and 5.1% scored within the range of adult ADHD.…”

Adult ADHD: Associations with Personality and Other Psychopathology

“…In a related vein, Markon et al (2011) analyses of data from 58 studies involving 59,575 participants indicate that continuous psychopathology measures are both more reliable and valid than discrete measures. Taking a symptom-based approach also maximizes sample sizes for analyses, as cases are not separated into smaller subgroups; this is particularly valuable given that many ADHD comorbidity studies acknowledge small group sample sizes as a limitation (e.g.,., Disney et al 1999;Simon et al 2013;Van Ameringen et al 2011). Thus, we focused on explicating the relations for ADHD symptoms rather than diagnoses.…”