Main focus of parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the effectiveness of early clinical screening

Abstract

BACKGROUND Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common mental and behavioral disorder among children. AIM To explore the focus of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder parents and the effectiveness of early clinical screening METHODS This study found that the main directions of parents seeking medical help were short attention time for children under 7 years old (16.6%) and poor academic performance for children over 7 years old (12.1%). We employed a two-stage experiment to diagnose ADHD. Among the 5683 children evaluated from 2018 to 2021, 360 met the DSM-5 criteria. Those diagnosed with ADHD underwent assessments for letter, number, and figure attention. Following the exclusion of ADHD-H diagnoses, the detection rate rose to 96.0%, with 310 out of 323 cases identified. RESULTS This study yielded insights into the primary concerns of parents regarding their children's symptoms and validated the efficacy of a straightforward diagnostic test, offering valuable guidance for directing ADHD treatment, facilitating early detection, and enabling timely intervention. Our research delved into the predominant worries of parents across various age groups. Furthermore, we showcased the precision of the simple exclusion experiment in discerning between ADHD-I and ADHD-C in children. CONCLUSION Our study will help diagnose and guide future treatment directions for ADHD.