Assessment of age-at-onset criterion for adult attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
prospective_cohort · Level II
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35049487.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1192/bjp.2021.122 and PMC identifier 7612274.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
To investigate the accuracy of the age-at-onset criterion in those who meet other DSM-5 criteria for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, using a prospective population cohort we compared four different approaches to asking those aged 25 years (<i>n</i> = 138) when their symptoms started. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed variation between the approaches (χ<sub>(3)</sub> = 8.99, <i>P</i> = 0.03); all four showed low discrimination against symptoms that had been assessed when they were children (area under the curve: 0.57-0.68). Asking adults to recall specific symptoms may be preferable to recalling at what age symptoms started. However, limitations to retrospective recall add to debate on the validity of ADHD age-at-onset assessment.