[Long-term outcome studies of hyperactive children: literature review]

The attention deficit hyperactive disorder (hereinafter ADHD, children with this disease usually are named hyperactive children) is often one of the most frequent diagnosis of psychiatric outpatients for children. Though there are still some disputes in diagnosis, child psychiatrists can diagnose individual cases through interview, observation and the information provided by their parents and teachers. Besides the diagnosis and treatment, the result of long-term follow-up studies of hyperactive children also gradually indicate the most extreme signification. According to the long-term outcome studies of hyperactive children conducted in foreign countries for the past 20 to 30 years, symptoms of hyperactive children will not disappear completely as they grew up; instead, the residual symptoms can cause adaptive impairment in their adolescent and adult period. The core symptoms of ADHD (inattention, hyperactivity, impulsive behavior) can be satisfactorily managed if they can be diagnosed as earlier as possible, through medicine and behavioral therapy, plus medical staff and cooperation from family, school and society. If there is no early diagnosis or intervention, and let symptoms continue, after growing up, associated conduct problem or disorder, antisocial behavior, substance abuse and antisocial personality disorder, even criminal behavior will have higher opportunity to develop into adolescence and adulthood. These behavioral problems will cause very serious social problems. We have became more clearly aware of the accurate recognition of hyperactive children and have emphasized its importance in recent years. Unfortunately, there are still no long-term follow-up study reports regarding these children in our country; therefore we could not discover the effective predictors and higher risk groups for early intervention and prevention. This paper aims at reviewing long-term outcome studies of hyperactive children and trying to organize its adaptive problems and associated mental disorders after growing up. We also expect that the long-term follow-up studies on hyperactive children can be seen in the very near future at our country.