Where to find accurate information on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder? A study of scientific distortions among French websites, newspapers, and television programs

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is the most frequent mental disorder among school-age children. This condition has given rise to a large mediatic coverage, which contributed to the shaping of the lay public’s perceptions. We therefore conducted two studies on the way attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder was portrayed in the TV programs and the lay-public press in France between 1995 and 2015, but the growing part played by the Internet required an additional study to analyze and compare the scientific material which is available to the French lay public depending on the source of information used. We studied the 50 first French websites dedicated to attention-deficit/hyperactivity as indexed by Google® search engine using a structured quantitative content analysis for the web. We illustrate our results with excerpts derived from the websites. The conceptions of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder available on the Internet are essentially biomedical and comprise an important level of scientific distortion. Findings concerning other mass media such as television programs and the press also demonstrate massive and systematic distortions caused by the role of experts and the pharmaceutical industry. Furthermore, the most consulted media present the highest level of scientific distortions.

ADHD diagnosis and methylphenidate consumption in children and adolescents: A systematic analysis of health databases in France over the period 2010–2019

“…Since the beginning of the 2000s, television programs and websites dedicated to ADHD have proliferated in France. The vast majority of them support an organic cause for ADHD and present the drug treatment in an excessively favorable light ( 71 , 72 ). The print media have also helped to raise awareness of ADHD but have been more nuanced about the use of MPH ( 73 ).…”

The Digital Phenotyping Project: A Psychoanalytical and Network Theory Perspective

“…Controversies remain despite what some studies may suggest, which are too affirmative, so that a strictly and exclusively biological approach to psychiatry may appear as a speculative bubble ( Gonon, 2011 ). The question of referring to reliable information arises in a major way, as in the example of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ( Ponnou et al, 2019 ). What if mental disorders are not just brain disorders?…”

Media portrayals of psychotropic agents in AD/HD treatment: A social constructionist approach

“…For the most part, previous studies on media coverage of AD/HD diagnosis and treatment have been quantitative and descriptive, and hence largely under theorized (see however Schmitz et al, 2003 who discuss media representations of AD/HD in relation to social representations theory). Examples of such studies include Börjesson (1999), Cassels et al (2003), Williams et al (2008), Horton-Salway (2011, 2013), Isaksen and Tjora (2016), Ponnou and Gonon (2017), and Ponnou et al (2020). A common theme that can be identified is that the biomedical model of AD/HD, in various ways, frequently dominates the media space.…”

“…For example, Ponnou and Gonon (2017) show that for the most part news coverage of AD/HD promotes a favorable representation of the treatment and diagnosis. Ponnou et al (2020) performed a quantitative study of website coverage and tv programs focusing on AD/HD and found that it was portrayed as an essentially biomedical concept. Clarke’s (2011) investigation of popular magazines, however, shows that there is a more polarized portrayal of AD/HD, and whether the associated behaviors constitute a medical problem or not.…”

“…Similarly, Matthew-Simmons and Ritter (2014) display that the media in general reports positive effects of medication for AD/HD. In some studies, the media representations of AD/HD are contrasted with research evidence of pharmaceutical efficacy and effectiveness (Ponnou et al, 2020; Matthew-Simmons and Ritter, 2014; see also Fabbri et al, 2020).…”