ADHD, Author Interviews, Depression, Education, JAMA, Mental Health Research, Pediatrics / 25.09.2019
Younger Children in Same School Year More Likely To Be Diagnosed with Depression, ADHD and Intellectual Disability
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Jeremy Brown BA MSc
RESEARCH DEGREE STUDENT IN PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Given the way schools typically work, children in the same year as each other can be almost a whole year apart in terms of age. We’ve known for a while that children who are young in their year at school are also more likely to be diagnosed as having hyperactivity disorders and tend to do less well academically than the older children in the year. They also seem to be at increased risk of suicide. This is thankfully an extremely rare occurrence in children, but there is little evidence about whether younger children are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.
We used electronic health records for just over a million children in the UK to see if there was any association between how old the children were in their year and whether they got diagnosed with ADHD, intellectual disability and depression. (more…)