[Controversies around the diagnosis of ADHD]

Complaints about restlessness, difficulties to focus and impulsivity are amongst the most frequent reasons for child psychiatric consultations. Those complaints refer to the core symptoms of the ADHD. However, the diagnosis of ADHD is delicate to establish and subject to several controversies regarding its etiopathological origins and, therefore, its treatment. In practice, those situations include very different cases and it seems obvious that this is a polyfactorial disorder, no single factor alone being sufficient to account for all the difficulties experienced by the children. It would therefore be simplistic to consider the ADHD as issued only from a neurobiological disorder and to consider a drug treatment, only. We are rather in favor of an integrative approach and a global treatment on a case by case basis.