Prevalence of ADHD Diagnosis and Treatment in African-American Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of the Literature
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- April 21, 2020
- Creator
-
Wilson, Crystal
- Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Public Health Leadership Program
- Abstract
- Purpose: To systematically review the literature to determine 1) the diagnostic and 2) treatment prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder among African American youth and compare the prevalence to Caucasian children and adolescents. Methods: Medline, Psychinfo, and Web of Science databases were searched from 1994- present for cross-sectional studies, cohort, non-randomized clinical trials, and metaanalyses that contained information regarding the diagnostic prevalence or prevalence of treatment for ADHD and compared African-Americans children and/or adolescents with Caucasian children and/or adolescents,. The author independently assessed studies for inclusion and quality. Results: 10 studies met inclusion and quality criteria for diagnosis and/or treatment and thus received detailed evaluation. Four studies specifically compared prevalence of an ADHD diagnosis between African-Americans and Caucasians while 9 studies specifically addressed treatment rates for ADHD among different ethnic subgroups. Three of the four (7 5%) of the articles examining diagnostic prevalence demonstrated there was no significant difference in the likelihood of being diagnosed with ADHD between Caucasian American and African-Americans children. Of the articles examining treatment prevalence, seven of the nine (71.4%) articles demonstrated African-Americans were less likely than Caucasian Americans to receive ADHD medications. Of note, other disparities in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD such as regional and health insurance factors were noted. Conclusions: Overall, it appears that disparities do exist in regards to ADHD treatment but not in diagnosis between African American and Caucasian youth. In addition to the need for higher quality, population-based studies that examine the disparate relationship between ADHD recognition and treatment in African American youth, further research should be dedicated to examining the factors that affect ADHD treatment rates in this group. Parental views and differential response to subtypes of ADHD treatment may play roles in this disparity.
- Date of publication
- May 2008
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Paper type: Research or research design
- Advisor
- Viera, Anthony
- Reviewer
- Calleson, Diane
- Degree
- Master of Public Health
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2008
- Language
- Deposit record
- 564d1737-ca9b-4211-9c3e-c1926665c3df
Relations
- Parents:
This work has no parents.