Health and Mental Health Impact of ADHD
Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D.

Dr. Barkley is Research Professor, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY, and a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC U.S.A. His presentation will be based on his recently published third edition of his professional textbook, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Handbook for Diagnosis and Treatment (2006), New York: Guilford Publications.

This presentation will review the myriad adverse effects that ADHD is associated with across the lifespan studied to date in numerous domains of major life activities. Professor Barkley will summarize the findings in the current scientific literature. He will specifically address psychiatric comorbidity, medical, developmental, social, and educational risks associated with childhood and adolescent ADHD. He will also review the adverse impact that ADHD produces by adulthood, including the domains of educational, occupational, social, and financial functioning, as well as motor vehicle driving and sexual activity. For instance, in his own follow-up study of ADHD children into adulthood, he has found significantly lower educational performance and attainment with 32% failing to complete high school. The ADHD group had been fired (dismissed) from more jobs and manifested greater employer-rated ADHD and ODD symptoms and lower job performance than the control group. Socially, the ADHD group had fewer close friends, more trouble keeping friends, and more social problems as rated by parents. Far more of the ADHD than Control group members had become parents (38% vs. 4%) and had been treated for sexually transmitted disease (16% vs. 4%). Severity of lifetime conduct disorder was predictive of several of the most salient outcomes (failure to graduate, earlier sexual intercourse, early parenthood) while ADHD and ODD at work were predictive of job performance and risk of being fired. These findings corroborate prior research and go further in identifying sexual activity and early parenthood as additional problematic domains of adaptive functioning at adulthood.

The implications these impairments may have for life-expectancy for those having ADHD will also be noted. Treatment implications of these findings will also be briefly highlighted.