Predicting Psychiatric and Medical Outcomes of Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Despite these data about mortality and health care use, prior literature about medical outcomes in adult ADHD is limited in several ways: 1) they have been based in one or more health care organizations or in clinically referred samples.  None have used population data to produce unbiased estimates of the magnitude of the association; 2) most have not adjusted estimates for potential confounds such as social class and psychiatric comorbidity; 3) most have not been sufficiently large to test for sex effects and developmental trends; 4) they have taken a ‘candidate disease’ approach by focusing on a limited set of outcomes. No prior study has conducted an unbiased epidemiologic study to survey all medical outcomes; and 5) most have not addressed the effects of ADHD medications with the exception that such medication use reduces the risk for accidents (3, 4). To address these limitations, we propose a population-based assessment of medical outcomes in adult ADHD using the nationwide population registries of Sweden (population N=15,000,000; ADHD N = 136,775). 

Aim 1:  Replicate prior reports of an increased prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity.

Aim 2: Assess medical outcomes among patients with ADHD 

Aim 3: Test the potential mediating effects of psychiatric comorbidity on medical outcomes.