Growing out of ADHD: the relationship between functioning and symptoms.
OBJECTIVE
The objective is to ascertain whether people in partial remission (IPR) or in full remission (IR) of their ADHD symptoms continue to have neuropsychological deficits and clinical and psychosocial problems.


METHODS
IPR and IR groups are compared with fully symptomatic ADHD patients and normal controls.


RESULTS
The results show a decline across the patient groups indicating that symptom remission is associated with improvement in neuropsychological, clinical, and psychosocial problems. The two symptomatic (ADHD and IPR) groups have the most marked psychosocial and drug-related problems, and they seem to continue to attempt to access help by presenting to adult psychiatric services. However, the IR group continues to have neuropsychological problems in comparison to the normal controls.


CONCLUSIONS
Neuropsychological functioning, clinical, and psychosocial problems seem to be closely associated with ADHD symptoms and improve steadily with remission. However, some residual problems persist for which the patients seek psychiatric help.
Young
Susan
S
King's College, London, UK. s.young@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Gudjonsson
Gisli H
GH
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011584:Psychology; D012075:Remission, Spontaneous; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012919:Social Behavior