ABSTRACT
There is an increasing interest in the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adulthood. It is also thought that ADHD is more prevalent in the field of intellectual disability (ID) than in the general population, but there are not many experimental studies. Since ADHD diagnosis in adults is more difficult, specific rating scales correlated to the main diagnostic systems have been created but have not been applied to people with ID. This work presents an application of an ADHD screening rating scale, the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS) screening version to 46 adults with ID. The resulting prevalence of "ADHD-positive" was 19.6%. These data are in accord with results reported in the general adult literature. Our data suggest that ID and attention disorders can co-occur. Therefore, not only can ADHD be a valid psychiatric diagnosis for a child with ID but for an adult with ID as well. The CAARS can be considered a useful clinical instrument to survey ADHD in ID.
Subject(s)
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/diagnosis , Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/epidemiology , Intellectual Disability/epidemiology , Psychiatric Status Rating Scales/standards , Adult , Female , Humans , Male , Mass Screening , Middle Aged , Prevalence , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: In 1994, the American Association on Mental Retardation with the DSM-IV has come to a final definition of pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), in agreement with the ICD-10. Prevalence of PDD in the general population is 0.1-0.15% according to the DSM-IV. PDD are more frequent in people with severe intellectual disability (ID). There is a strict relationship between ID and autism: 40% of people with ID also present a PDD, on the other hand, nearly 70% of people with PDD also have ID. We believe that in Italy PDD are underestimated because there is no agreement about the classification system and diagnostic instruments. METHOD: Our aim is to assess the prevalence of PDD in the Italian population with ID. The Scale of Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Mentally Retarded Persons (PDD-MRS) seems to be a very good instrument for classifying and diagnosing PDD. RESULTS: The application of the PDD-MRS and a clinical review of every individual case on a sample of 166 Italian people with ID raised the prevalence of PDD in this population from 7.8% to 39.2%. CONCLUSIONS: The study confirms the relationship between ID and autism and suggests a new approach in the study of ID in order to elaborate a new integrated model for people with ID.
