According to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the cases of ADHD had increased by 42 percent within a decade.
Researchers from the National Survey of Children's Health conducted a random telephone survey every four years across the country. They ask various questions including ADHD starting 2003.
The most recent Feb 2011 to June 2012 survey involves 95,677 people with a total response rate of 23 percent. The results show an alarming increase in the number of children diagnosed with ADHD, with a 42 percent increase from 2003. Also, out of 6.4 million children between 4 and 17 years old, 11 percent were diagnosed with ADHD. This means that from 2007, an additional of 2 million children now have ADHD.
Moreover, ADHD medications use is also increasing. Compared from the previous data back in 2007, there is now a 28 percent rise in drug-related treatment for ADHD. Out of 3.5 million children within the age group 4-17 years old, six percent of them are on a medication treatment program.
Although the rise of ADHD is a concern demanding attention, Dr. John Walkup treats this as good news that more and more ADHD kids are getting medical attention. Dr. Walkup is the Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s director of child and adolescent psychiatry. He wrote an editorial for the journal but is an external party to this specific study.
"We've been working so hard for so long to improve treatment. If the prevalence rate is nine to 11 percent and we're getting eight percent currently diagnosed, it suggests that the public advocacy for treatment is paying off,” he said. He also argued that since only 70 percent are receiving medications, "It's hard to argue that we're overtreating."
Other health experts on the other hand are not as happy at the prevalence rates. The former chair of Duke University’s psychiatry department, Dr. Allen Frances, told CNN, "The numbers shouldn't be taken at face value. The history of psychiatry is a history of fads, and we are now suffering from a fad of ADHD," Frances said.
He also mentioned that sales of ADHD medications are being pushed by the pharmaceutical industry. Dr Frances added, "We are medicalizing immaturity and turning childhood into a disease.”
Lead researcher and CDC epidemiologist Susanna Visser, on the other hand, trusts the diagnoses made by doctors. "I don't think we have our doctors out there labeling children irresponsibly. In general, physicians are trying to help children with their needs."
The study was published in the Identity FinderJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
