Garcia-Argibay Miguel, Kuja-Halkola Ralf, Lundström Sebastian, Lichtenstein Paul, Cortese Samuele, Larsson Henrik
School of Medical Sciences Faculty of Medicine and Health Örebro University Örebro Sweden.
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Karolinska Institutet Stockholm Sweden.
JCPP Adv. 2024 Apr 30;4(3):e12238. doi: 10.1002/jcv2.12238. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Over the last decades, the prevalence of Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has increased. However, the underlying explanation for this increase remains unclear. We aimed to assess whether there has been a secular change in how parents perceive the impairment conferred by ADHD symptomatology.
Data for this study were obtained from the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden, involving 27,240 individuals whose parents answered a questionnaire when the children were 9 years old. We assessed the relationship between parentally perceived impairment caused by ADHD symptoms scores over time. The analysis was performed separately for five different birth cohorts, spanning three-year periods from 1995 to 2009 and for ADHD inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity dimensions.
We found a consistent upward trend of parents reporting impairment in relation to ADHD symptomatology across birth cohorts. Over a 12-year period, comparing those born 2007-2009 (assessed 2016-2018) with those born 1995-1997 (assessed 2004-2006), impairment scores increased by 27% at clinically relevant levels of ADHD symptomatology. Notably, when specifically evaluating the hyperactivity/impulsivity dimension, the disparity was even more striking, with an increase of up to 77%.
This study revealed a significant secular change in parental perception of impairment attributed to ADHD symptomatology over recent decades, providing new insights into the increased prevalence of ADHD. It underscores the need to better understand the factors that have contributed to the increased perception of impairment related to ADHD symptoms.
在过去几十年中，注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）的患病率有所上升。然而，这种上升的根本原因仍不清楚。我们旨在评估父母对ADHD症状所带来的损害的认知是否发生了长期变化。
本研究的数据来自瑞典儿童和青少年双胞胎研究，涉及27240名个体，他们的父母在孩子9岁时回答了一份问卷。我们评估了随时间推移父母感知到的由ADHD症状评分所导致的损害之间的关系。对五个不同的出生队列分别进行了分析，这些队列跨越了从1995年到2009年的三年时间段，并且针对ADHD的注意力不集中和多动/冲动维度进行了分析。
我们发现，在各个出生队列中，父母报告与ADHD症状相关的损害呈持续上升趋势。在12年的时间里，将2007 - 2009年出生（于2016 - 2018年进行评估）的儿童与1995 - 1997年出生（于2004 - 2006年进行评估）的儿童进行比较，在ADHD症状的临床相关水平上，损害评分增加了27%。值得注意的是，当专门评估多动/冲动维度时，差异更为显著，增加幅度高达77%。
这项研究揭示了近几十年来父母对ADHD症状所致损害的认知发生了显著的长期变化，为ADHD患病率的上升提供了新的见解。它强调了有必要更好地理解导致与ADHD症状相关的损害认知增加的因素。
