adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and suicide attempters: a case control study from iran, west asia

Background: childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) persists into adulthood in up to two thirds of affected patients. usually, adhd has co-morbidities with several psychiatric disorders, and its symptoms occur more frequently in suicide attempters and may thus be a reason for the completed act of suicide. objectives: the aim of the current study was to compare adult suicide attempters affected by adhd with other suicide attempters without a history of suicide attempts that referred to the outpatient clinic. patients and methods: this case control study was conducted at loghman-hakim hospital, tehran, during a one year period. a total of 394 hospitalized patients in the poison control center that had attempted suicide were recruited. in the control group, 394 individuals without a history of suicide attempts were recruited from referrals to the outpatient clinic of loghman-hakim hospital, which provides services for almost all medical specialties. we used conners’ adult adhd rating scale, including the screening version form and subscale (caars-s: sv), the wender utah rating scale (wurs), and clinical interviews for diagnosis of adhd. the hypothesis was tested using an independent samples t-test and anova. results: the results of our study showed that a history of psychiatric disorders and a family history of adhd and suicide were significantly higher (p > 0.01) in the case group than the control group. in addition, both children and adult adhd among suicide attempters were significantly higher (p > 0.01) than the corresponding rates in the control group. conclusions: adhd is a common co-morbidity among suicide attempters. hence, early diagnosis and treatment with consideration of adhd may reduce suicide attempt risk.