TUESDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) — Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) miss, on average, more than three weeks a year in workplace productivity, according to a new global reckoning of the problem.
Altogether, between 3 percent and 4 percent of adults worldwide have ADHD, according to survey data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Researchers say the condition can cause a serious loss of concentration at work due to chronic hyperactivity, forgetfulness and impulsiveness.
But many adult workers with ADHD may not know they have a problem, the team noted.
“While surveying mental disorders around the world, we’ve interviewed close to 200,000 people in almost 30 countries, and we’re discovering that an enormous number of adult workers — more than 3 percent on average — have untreated adult ADHD,” said study co-author Ron Kessler, a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Kessler is also the director of the WHO’s World Mental Health Survey Consortium, which is based at Harvard.
“From a societal point of view, it’s a pretty big deal, because ADHD affects work performance even more than depression does,” he added. “It’s more persistent and severe than many mental disorders, and it results in more sick days, more accidents, and more problems interacting with colleagues. So given that employers are increasingly thinking about health care costs in terms of investment opportunities, we think it’s useful to point out that it’s probably a very smart and profitable business move for employers to screen their workers for ADHD and get them into treatment.”
Results of the WHO survey are being published Tuesday in the online edition of the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Kessler and his colleagues conducted country-by-country ADHD diagnostic assessments on more than 7,000 employed and self-employed workers between the ages of 18 and 44.
The ADHD screenings were held in Belgium, Columbia, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. All the participants were also asked to describe their work performance over the prior month.
An average of 3.5 percent of those interviewed had ADHD, a condition whose initial onset typically occurs in childhood. Among Americans, the rate rose to 4.5 percent, Kessler noted.
ADHD was more common among men than women, more common in developed than developing countries (such as Mexico, Lebanon, and Columbia), and more common among blue-collar workers than white-collar professionals. Age did not appear to be associated with ADHD risk.
Very few of the diagnosed patients said they had received any treatment for ADHD in the prior year. In fact, only some of the Dutch and American patients indicated having received any treatment for ADHD, and in those countries only about 3 percent and 13 percent of the Dutch and U.S. workers, respectively, reported any treatment history.
Those diagnosed with ADHD spent more than 22 fewer days per year working compared with non-ADHD workers. This included an average of more than eight days during which ADHD employees said they simply could not carry out their routine tasks; almost 22 days with reduced productivity; and nearly 14 days of reduced quality in the work they produced.
“The fact is that adult ADHD hasn’t been on people’s radar screens,” said Kessler. “The feeling was that somehow magically when kids with ADHD grow up they grow out of it. But this survey shows that this is not the case.”
Dr. David W. Goodman, director of the Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center in Luthersville, Md., agreed that ADHD is an “under-diagnosed and under-recognized psychiatric condition that causes a tremendous amount of disability in the work environment.”
And while he supports the idea of screening workers for ADHD, Goodman, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, worries that “identifying workers with ADHD raises the possibility for discrimination.”
He also wondered whether people who are diagnosed with the condition, especially in the developing world, would have doctors available to help them.
More information
For more on ADHD and the workplace, visit the U.S. National Resource Center on ADHD.
SOURCES: Ron Kessler, PhD, professor, health care policy, Harvard Medical School, and director, WHO’s World Mental Health Survey Consortium; David W. Goodman, M.D., assistant professor, department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, and director, Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Center, Baltimore; May 27, 2008, online edition, Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
Last Updated: May 28, 2008
Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Comments (8)
When working many years ago in a drug/ alchohol program I had a collegue who was pursuing the idea that people who drank or used drugs were self medicating an underlying condition….this very well may be it.
Oh, my gosh!! I have heard of adult ADHD, but never really read about it to know what it is exactly, or how it effects a person. It fits for me !! Now I will get more information and with that, make a dr. appt. and hopefully get the help I know I need. I can hardly believe it took 63 years for me to become aware of this! Now I already feel better about getting a gazillion half done projects completed. (I know those around me will appreciate it too!) Thank you for this information!!
I have ADHD and feel that taking my adderal is the only way I can actually get my work done. I am thinking of having a baby and it concerns me with the ADHD and how I will ever manage to get through the next months without adderal while I am pregnant. Is it at all safe to take it while I am pregnant? Other suggestions?
For anyone who has dealt with ADHD in a child or an adult, this should be an outrage. It is already hard enough to get a job in this economy. Now they want to screen people for ADHD like they would for drugs? ADHD brings enough challenges to those affected by it, and you want to screen them out of the job pool? How can this help undiagnosed adults in ANY way? All it does is give potential employers a reason to skip over some of the most creative, out-of-the-box thinkers in the work force. This doesn’t just raise the possibility of discrimination, it screams discrimination.
To Khay, don’t worry about discrimination. Employers can no more discriminate against you for having (I call it being) ADHD than they could for having cancer or diabetes. It is an illness than sometimes interferes with work, but like diabetes, is treatable and may require what is known as reasonable accommodation. It may mean you have to go to work earlier, or work on a quieter floor, or take more breaks during the day. If you add value, the employer will want to accommodate your ADHD.
Wonderful epxalantion of facts available here.
I have know that ive had a.d.d. for a long time. I am almost 19 years old now but when i lived at home with my aunt and uncle they kept telling me no you dont have a.d.d your fine blah blah blah. They just didnt want me on any meds. About about a month and a half ago i made an appointment and they had me take this test on the computer to test me if i had it. what do you know i was rite! the first prescription didnt work at all, i flushed the pills down the toilet. i just got a new script today and am not sure if it is working yet but to soon to say. I think i will be more sucessful in the work place. my job sucks (maintenance/janitor for walmart) anyway, who would have guessed that its quite difficult to do even that job with a.d.d let alone any other job. constant back and forth trying to get a thousand things done in 8 hours, starting a task and then not finishing it to go on to the next!! Long story short i am glad i am getting the help i need especialy since i am now going to enrol in tech school because i no longer think i cant do it. I hope all of you that have symptoms make an appointment with your doctor. No blood tests or anything, just some questions and maybe a little thing they give you on the computer to test your concentration. You will not regret doing so. GOOD LUCK!!!!
this may seem off topic to a.d.d but i PROMISE you it’s not. this is going along with Doris Rotolo post about self medicating. everybody wonders if this is correct or incorrect. As of now i dont believe their is a definate answer and their will always be controversy over it. I use to use drugs on a daily basis for about 6 years. I won’t say that i was self medication but i wont say i wasnt. at first it helped me, then it got out of hand and didnt end in a pill a day to keep the a.d.d away. I got hooked, i got arrested. It no longer is looked at as self medicating, you need it to function. GO TO THE DOCTOR AND DO IT THE RITE WAY BECAUSE I HAVE TO DEAL WITH WHAT I DID EVERYDAY!! and to the parents out their like mine that dont want your child taking prescription medication because you think your doing what is rite for your child can hurt them more then you think. failing school, getting into fights, and getting into drugs even. take your child to the doctor and get him/her tested their are other ways to treat a.d.d / a.d.h.d by not taking medication. Your child if diagnosed will thank you for it in the long run. (IMPORTANT::: if you are a parent with a child diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactive disorder make sure you dont leave the meds on the counter lock them up. most are stimulants and everyday more people/kids have been abusing them. I did, before i was diagnosed. It ruined 6 years of my life that i will never get back. overdosing on the meds is very easy, if it is a stimulant, it makes the heart race, if too many were taken the heart is working overtime, heart attack, irregular heart beat, and death are possible. i am no doctor so talk to an actualy doctor but he will say the same thing. i know from personal expierence. thank you. to you parents out their reading this you could very well save your childs life.