Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Adult Outcome and Its Predictors

The book provides a comprehensive summary of the best known and most highly respected well-controlled long-term prospective follow-up studies in ADHD. These studies followed children with ADHD and matched controls into young adulthood (mean age 20-25 years) and middle-age (mean age 41 years). They explore a wide variety of outcome areas, e.g. education, occupation, emotional and psychiatric functioning, substance use and abuse, sexual behavior, as well as legal problems. One chapter focuses particularly on the outcome of girls with ADHD. Outcome areas explored are thus comprehensive and clinically very relevant. The book also explores the possible predictors of adult outcome. A whole chapter is devoted to treatment (medication and psychosocial) as a predictor of outcome. In addition to treatment, predictors explored include characteristics of the child (e.g., IQ, severity of initial ADHD symptoms, initial comorbidity characteristics of the family, e.g., socioeconomic status, single parenthood, parental pathology, and family functioning. In a summary chapter, the impact and importance of these various predictors in different outcome areas, e.g. education, occupation, emotional/social functioning, antisocial behavior, substance use and abuse and risky sexual and driving behaviors are explored. In summary, the book provides a comprehensive view of the prognosis, e.g., long-term outcome of ADHD and key factors which can influence this outcome. Professionals and the general public will thus get a clear view of what can happen to children with ADHD as they proceed through adolescence and adulthood and address important prognostic and predictive factors in their treatment approaches to ensure better long-term outcome in patients with ADHD.

About the Author

Dr. Lily Hechtman is a Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at McGill University and Director of Research in the Division of Child Psychiatry. Her research has focused on long-term prospective studies of children with ADHD followed into adolescence and adulthood, summarized in: Weiss, G, Hechtman, L: Hyperactive Children Grown Up, second edition, Guilford Press, 1993. Interest in the diagnosis and treatment of adults with ADHD resulted in: Weiss, M, Hechtman, L, Weiss, G: ADHD in Adulthood - A Guide to Current Theory, Diagnosis, and Treatment. The John Hopkins Press, 1999. Drs. Hechtman and Abikoff conducted the first controlled multimodal treatment study of children with ADHD. This study set the stage for the multisite multimodal treatment of children with ADHD (the MTA study). Dr. Hechtman headed one of the sites. Dr. Hechtman has been honored by the American Child and Adults with ADHD (CHADD) organization, and CACAP for “outstanding contributions in service, teaching, and research at the regional, national, and international level.” She has also been the recipient of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Elaine Schlosser Lewis Award for ADHD research and the CACAP Paul D. Steinhauer Advocacy Award, as well as the Transcontinental Research Award of Excellence.