Assessing ADHD symptoms in children and adults: evaluating the role of objective measures

Behavioral and Brain Functions : BBF
Theresa S EmserHanna Christiansen

Abstract

Diagnostic guidelines recommend using a variety of methods to assess and diagnose ADHD. Applying subjective measures always incorporates risks such as informant biases or large differences between ratings obtained from diverse sources. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that ratings and tests seem to assess somewhat different constructs. The use of objective measures might thus yield valuable information for diagnosing ADHD. This study aims at evaluating the role of objective measures when trying to distinguish between individuals with ADHD and controls. Our sample consisted of children (n = 60) and adults (n = 76) diagnosed with ADHD and matched controls who completed self- and observer ratings as well as objective tasks. Diagnosis was primarily based on clinical interviews. A popular pattern recognition approach, support vector machines, was used to predict the diagnosis. We observed relatively high accuracy of 79% (adults) and 78% (children) applying solely objective measures. Predicting an ADHD diagnosis using both subjective and objective measures exceeded the accuracy of objective measures for both adults (89.5%) and children (86.7%), with the subjective variables proving to be the most relevant. We argue that objectiv...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 27, 2020·International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research·Fredrik UlberstadLisa B Thorell
Oct 24, 2020·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Ortal SlobodinItai Berger
Jan 16, 2021·Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment·Rajna KnezElisabet Wentz
Mar 1, 2021·Environmental Research·Deborah J WatkinsMartha María Téllez-Rojo
May 29, 2021·Pediatric Blood & Cancer·Camara MurphyLisa M Ingerski
Jun 3, 2021·Bioengineering·Allyson CampAnthony Guiseppi-Elie

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Software Mentioned

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TAP
SVM
KiTAP
Matlab
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