Adults with attention-deficit /hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do about one month's less work each year than people who don't have this condition, a new 10-country study from the World Health Organisation (WHO) demonstrates.
And only a few of these days are spent out sick. "They are at work, but the quality and quantity of the work is less than is usual," Dr Ron de Graaf of the Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction in Utrecht, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. Workplace programs to screen employees for ADHD and provide treatment could be a cost-effective way to improve productivity, de Graaf and his team say, especially since just a fraction of individuals with the condition were getting treatment.
The condition is characterised by inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity and is more common among children in the preschool and early school years. It is hard for these children to control their behaviour and pay attention. The National Institutes of Healths estimated that between 3 and 5 percent of children have ADHD, or approximately 2 million children in the United States.
To evaluate the prevalence of ADHD among adults and its consequences in the workplace, the researchers surveyed 7,075 18- to 44-year-olds who were paid workers or self-employed as part of the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The survey included workers in Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and the US.
Overall, the researchers found, 3.5 percent of individuals surveyed met diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Males were much more likely to have the disorder, while ADHD was less common among professionals.
On average, people with ADHD said they were out of work for 8.4 more days than people without ADHD. They also reported 21.7 more days in which they didn't get as much done as they usually did, and 13.6 more days in which they cut back on the quality of their work or worked less carefully. Overall, individuals with ADHD had 22.1 more total days "out of role," meaning they weren't fulfilling their work demands, than people without.
In the Netherlands, 2.7 percent of people with ADHD reported getting some type of treatment, while 12.6 percent of those in the US did, but none of the individuals with ADHD in any of the eight other countries were being treated. However, many were receiving treatment for some type of mental health or substance abuse problem.
ADHD manifests itself somewhat differently among adults than children, de Graaf noted, and symptoms can vary from person to person. "People can be very lively, very hyperactive, but you also have people who are not from the outside hyperactive but are in their work doing a lot of things at the same time, they're not focused on one job at one time," he explained.
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