Screening for ADHD in Adult Patients With Epilepsy: Prevalence of Symptoms and Challenges to Diagnosis
Trung Nguyen1, Emily Xiao1, Allison Clark1
1Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
Objective:
Given the complex nature of seizure disorders and their treatments, ADHD may be underdiagnosed in this population. We hypothesized that a higher percentage of patients presenting to a seizure clinic would endorse ADHD symptoms compared to rates reported in the general population and that formal screening for ADHD symptoms would identify patients with previously undiagnosed comorbid ADHD.
Methods:
In this study, we surveyed 312 adults in a seizure clinic using the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1).
Results:
We found that 90 patients (28.8%) screened positive with the ASRS-v1.1, but only nine of these patients were able to complete neuropsychological testing,. Out of these patients, only one was diagnosed with possible ADHD.
Conclusion:
Through this process, we identified many challenges to making a new ADHD diagnosis in this population, including attention deficits due to other medical or psychiatric diagnoses, a positive urine drug screen, lack of collateral report/information about developmental history, and barriers to neuropsychological evaluation.
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