Research Information System
ANADOLU PSIKIYATRI DERGISI-ANATOLIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY, vol.10, no.2, pp.88-93, 2009 (SCI-Expanded)
Objective: In our study, we aimed to scan attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms with scale and determine the prevalence of persons who had high level of ADHD symptoms. Methods: 1961 university students participated in the study and they were given Adult ADD/ADHD DSM-IV-Based Diagnostic Screening and Rating Scale. According to results, we determined prevalence of university students who reported high degree ADHD symptoms and the difference between genders and between formal education and night school students. Results: 1961 university students were taken to the study and 63.4% (n=1244) of them were women and 36.5% (n=717) of them were men. 65.0% (n=1273) of the students were from formal education and 35.0% (n=687) were from night school of university. After statistical evaluations, we found the prevalence of students with high degree ADHD symptom as 15.55%. Men got significantly more points in hyperactivity subscale (p=0.001) and total points (p=0.047) of the scale. There was no significant difference between formal education and night school students according to ADHD symptoms. Discussion: According to results of the scale we used, the prevalence rate of students with self reported high degree of ADHD symptoms was higher than previous ADHD prevalence studies. This high rate may be due to not questioning childhood period for ADHD and not diagnosing the disorder with clinical assessment. In previous studies, it was shown that although ADHD is more common in boys, in adulthood it has an equal rate in both sexes, but in our study, we found ADHD more common in men and that may be because we assessed university students in early adulthood period. (Anatolian Journal of Psychiatry 2009; 10: 88-93)