INTRODUCTION : Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the commonest neurobehavioral disorder in children with worldwide prevalence in children aged <18 years being 7.2% and 3.4% in adults. Although studies suggests that ADHD occurs in families, there is paucity of data on the prevalence of parental ADHD in Indian children.

Study :

Objective :

1)To diagnose the subtype of ADHD(ADHD-I,ADHD-C,ADHD-HI) in children and parents.

2)To study the prevalence of parental ADHD in enrolled ADHD probands.

3)To observe the association of parental ADHD across gender, ages and  socioeconomic strata.

A prospective study was done at a DBP Clinic in an urban academic hospital at Mumbai, India.200 children, aged 8-15 years,diagnosed ADHD by DSM-5 criteria,were randomly selected and enrolled after informed consent and IRB approval. Parents were administered the Adult ADHD self-reporting scale (ASRS-v1.1).ADHD cases with comorbidities of SLD,internalizing and other externalizing behaviors were excluded.

RESULTS : Of 200 enrolled ADHD cases, ADHD-C/I mean age was 11.23 and 11.97 years  respectively with M:F ratio of 4.5:1.Parental ADHD, (often ADHD-I) was identified in 18.5%, fathers were 11.6 % and the rest 7.7 % were mothers. In female proband cases,the possibility of either parent screened positive for ADHD was higher (P= 0.013),the affected parent being female and of ADHD-I subtype was likely(P=0.025).

CONCLUSION : Parental ADHD is highly prevalent and may be of different subtype than that of proband. As occurrence of parental ADHD is also a predictor in the long term outcome of the multi modal intervention measures,we recommend screening of parents especially mothers of female ADHD cases.