Hyperactivity and attention problems in a Swiss sample of school-aged children: effects of school achievement, child gender, and informants.
OBJECTIVE
The sensitivity and tolerance regarding ADHD symptoms obviously differ from one culture to another and according to the informants (parents, teachers, or children). This stimulates the comparison of data across informants and countries.


METHODS
Parents and teachers of more than 1,000 school-aged Swiss children (5 to 17 years old) fill in Conners's questionnaires on ADHD. Children who are older than 10 years old also fill in a self-report questionnaire. Results are compared to data from a North American sample.


RESULTS
Swiss parents and teachers tend to report more ADHD symptoms than American parents and teachers as far as the oldest groups of children are concerned. Interactions are evidenced between school achievement, child gender, and informants. A relatively low rate of agreement between informants is found.


CONCLUSIONS
These results strengthen the importance to take into account all informants in the pediatric and the child psychiatry clinic, as well as in the epidemiological studies.
Pierrehumbert
Blaise
B
Service Universitaire de Psychiatrie de l'Enfant et de l'Adolescent, Lausanne, Switzerland. blaise.pierrehumbert@chuv.ch
Bader
Michel
M
Thévoz
Sara
S
Kinal
Anna
A
Halfon
Olivier
O
D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology