Researchers studied adults drawn from two national community surveys in the United States. A physician gave each person a structured ADHD interview. The two groups were combined into one sample of 345 adults, ranging in age from the late teens to the mid 40s.
Among adults who recalled having ADHD as children, fewer than half still met the full criteria as adults (45.7%). Attention problems lasted much better than hyperactivity. Nearly all of the adults who still had ADHD had current attention problems (94.9%), while only about a third had current hyperactivity (34.6%). Childhood attention-only problems carried into adulthood far more often than childhood hyperactivity-only problems (60.8% versus 12.1%).
When the researchers grouped the adult symptoms, three clusters appeared: executive functioning (things like planning and self-management), combined inattention and hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Executive functioning problems are not part of the DSM-IV checklist, but they were the strongest and most specific signs of adult ADHD. The authors suggested that future manuals add more executive functioning symptoms.
The findings come with limits. The interviews were done by phone, which may lower their accuracy. Diagnoses relied on self-report with no outside informants, and childhood symptoms were recalled years later. The sample was small, and the statistical method can find patterns by chance, so the results need testing again.
Source: Ronald C. Kessler, Jennifer Green, Lenard A. Adler, et al.. Structure and Diagnosis of Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry (2010). doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.146
[!note] Human review required before publishing — this is a Trusted claim.