Self-Reported ADHD Symptoms and Cognitive Performance in a National Sample of US Older Adults

Although inattention symptoms have been previously linked to cognitive performance in younger samples, few studies have examined links between ADHD symptoms and cognitive performance for middle aged and older adults.

In this study, we drew from a nationally representative sample from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) of ~1,400 middle to older adults (M_age = 66.9, SD = 8.4; 41.4% male; 60.7% White) who completed a set of cognitive measures and an ADHD symptomatology questionnaire in the 2016 Wave of the HRS. A multigroup path model was run by examining the association between self-reported ADHD symptom subscale scores for inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity as well as self-reported depressive symptoms and cognitive outcomes across three groups: middle age, young-old, and middle-old.

Inattention symptoms were significantly associated with Serial 7s and Immediate Recall, however the constrained model was the best fitting model, suggesting no differences in the associations between self-reported inattention symptoms and cognitive outcomes by age.

These results are consistent with previous work on the links between ADHD symptoms and cognitive performance in younger populations and add to the literature on ADHD in later life. This may have implications for clinicians and practitioners as well as future research on older adults with ADHD.