Adults with a history of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often suffer from multiple psychiatric problems during their lives including depression, anxiety and substance use, according to a study highligted by Reuters. Researchers found that in a group of parents with past or current ADHD symptoms, 87 percent also had at least one other psychiatric disorder over their lives, while 56 percent had two or more. Major depression was the most common diagnosis, affecting 59 percent of the group. That the estimated 4 percent of adults with ADHD may have such high rates of co-existing disorders stands as a "major public health problem," the authors of the study maintain in the American Journal of Psychiatry. One of the concerns, they note, is that these disorders can affect parenting. In this study, all of the participants were parents of children with ADHD, which is believed to have a strong genetic component. Dr. James J. McGough and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles, assessed 435 parents who had at least one child diagnosed with definite ADHD and another with "probable" or definite ADHD. --More 2256 Local Time 1956 GMT
