ADHD Children at Increased Risk for Bodily Injury

Older school age children and young adolescents with attention deficit personality disorder (ADHD) are found to be at increased risk of unintentional injury according to a study done by David Schwebel, PhD and colleagues at the Department of Psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Schwebel and his team studied 4,745 children whose ethnicities include blacks (20%), Hispanics (42%), white non-hispanic (23%) and others (5%). The children are participants in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Healthy Passages Study, community-based study of adolescent health.
In those kids, fourteen percent of them suffered 1 or more injuries in the previous year. The most common injury is broken bones, which comprised half of injuries reported. It is followed by joint injuries such as sprains and strains and cuts/bruises. Further analysis indicates that the odds of injury increased as ADHD symptoms and conduct disorders increased.
“Lots of injuries in a child should be a warning sign to start thinking about why this child is getting injured so much, and could this be a harbinger of ADHD,” said Flaura Winston, MD, PhD, FAAP and director of Center for Child Injury Prevention Studies at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Researchers indicated that the odds of injury increases significantly when they have symptoms of ADHD and conduct disorders, the more severe the symptoms the more are the odds. Boys are at greater risk than girls in hurting themselves due to tendency of males to engage in more physical activities.
Although the researchers did not further investigate how ADHD increases risk for bodily injury, they believed attention problems and impulsivity reduced the ability to recognize potentially risky situations.
“Preventing injuries is probably not the primary reason to treat ADHD, but it is the one of the positive consequences that should emerge if ADHD is properly treated,” said by Dr. Schwebel.
Dr. Schwebel and his team recommend that in addition to treating ADHD itself, clinicians should devote time and resources to teach children self-inhibition skills and to recognize situations that can be dangerous, which could help in reducing injury risk in later life. In addition, families should be educated about the increased risk of injury for children with ADHD.
The study is published in September/October issue of Academic Pediatrics.