title: Demographic Characteristics and Psychiatric Comorbidity of Children and Adolescents Diagnosed with ADHD in Specialized Healthcare.
abstract: Recent studies have shown an increasing incidence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children diagnosed in specialized services. This study aims to describe children with ADHD in Finnish specialized healthcare by reporting the demographic characteristics, time trends in diagnosis, psychiatric comorbidity, and the validity of register-based diagnoses. All the singletons born in Finland between 1991 and 2005 and diagnosed with ADHD by 2011 were identified and their psychiatric comorbidity data was obtained from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register (FHDR). Parents of 69 patients were interviewed via telephone for a diagnostic validation. A total of 10,409 children were identified with ADHD, with a male: female ratio of 5.3:1 and a psychiatric comorbidity rate of 76.7 %. Of the validation sample 88 % met the diagnostic criteria of ADHD for DSM-IV. There is an increasing trend of ADHD diagnosis among both males and females. Psychiatric comorbidity is common and includes a wide range of disorders among children with ADHD. There was an increase of ADHD diagnoses especially among boys. More attention is needed to detect ADHD among girls in health services. Diagnoses in the FHDR show diagnostic validity and their sociodemographic patterns are in line with previous studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland. petteri.joelsson@utu.fi.
authors.forename: Petteri
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Joelsson
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Roshan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chudal
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.|Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gyllenberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Anna-Kaisa
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Kesti
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hinkka-Yli-Salomäki
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Juha-Pekka
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Virtanen
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Jukka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huttunen
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Terja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ristkari
authors.affiliation: Navy Command Finland, Turku, Finland.|School of Medicine, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Parkkola
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.|Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden.|National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland.|New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gissler
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Lemminkäisenkatu 3/Teutori. 3rd Floor, 20014, Turku, Finland.|Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, USA.|Department of Child Psychiatry, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Andre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sourander
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D012042:Registries; D012737:Sex Factors
keywords: ADHD; Comorbidity; Epidemiology; Register-based; Validation