Diagnosing ADHD Too often and often wrong

Diagnosis ADHD: too often and too often wrong

02/07/2012

The recent publication of the Barmer GEK Physician Report 2012 mentions ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disease) as a "new childhood disease" that is on the rise and expensive. However, the fact that ADHD is a specific, even "new" childhood disease may still be seriously questioned. Research to date has left open the question of the specificity of a disease called ADHD. Rather, ADHD is a diagnostic collection pot of many different disorders. Somewhat exaggerated, it can be said that ADHD without Ritalin has long ceased to exist, as in the past the fashion diagnosis MCD (minimal cerebral dysfunction). As for the increase in diagnosis, as early as 2000, it was found that more than half of ADHD diagnoses in children did not meet the diagnostic guidelines and were therefore incorrect. Nearly 75 percent of children treated with methylphenidate had a false ADHD diagnosis (Angold 2000). In 2010, after examining the data of 12,000 children, Todd Elder reported that there are likely to be 1 million children in the United States with a false diagnosis of ADHD.

And now these days in Switzerland, it was examined whether experts comply with the official diagnostic guidelines when asked to diagnose children with ADHD. In contrast to the above-mentioned studies, in which already existing diagnoses were checked, the diagnosticians were asked directly about the given case vignettes, which is certainly a particularly strict criterion. And yet, even here, 17% of the 1000 included diagnosticians made false diagnoses, in boys even twice as often as in girls, although the symptoms were the same. There is also a growth of ADHD diagnostics, and the lack of reliability and objectivity of diagnostic practice has been adequately proven. Some diagnosticians are guided by their gut feeling, others still by methylphenidate as a diagnostic tool, according to the motto: if it works, it is just ADHD. ADHD is diagnosed far too often and often too fasch. The diagnosis blinds to psychological connections. (Dipl.-Psych. Hans-Reinhard Schmidt
Psychological Psychotherapist, Conference ADHD)

Attachment:
Angold A, Erkanli A, Egger H.L, Costello E.J. (2000): Stimulant treatment for children: a community perspective. J Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2000 Aug; 39 (8): 975-84.
Bruchmüller K, Margraf J, Schneider S. (2012): Is ADHD diagnosed in accord with the diagnostic criteria? Overdiagnosis and influence of client gender on diagnosis. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2012 Feb; 80 (1): 128-38.
Elder, T. E. (2010): The importance of relative standards in ADHD diagnoses: evidence based on exact birth dates. J Health Econ. 2010 Sep; 29 (5): 641-56.
Schimanski, H-Chr. (2012): http://www.schimansky-netz.eu/formulare/aussenfiltertest-bei-adhs.pdf Winkler, M. (2012): http://adhsspektrum.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/was-ist-adhs-und-was-nicht/

Image: Alfred Healer