The following broad trends emerged : ( 1 ) without treatment , people with ADHD had poorer long-term outcomes in all categories compared with people without ADHD , and ( 2 ) treatment for ADHD improved long-term outcomes compared with untreated ADHD , although not usually to normal levels .
Conclusions This systematic review provides a synthesis of studies of ADHD long-term outcomes .
Current treatments may reduce the negative impact that untreated ADHD has on life functioning , but does not usually ' normalize ' the recipients
Background In childhood , attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD ) is characterized by age-inappropriate levels of inattentiveness/disorganization , hyperactivity/impulsiveness , or a combination thereof .
Although the criteria for ADHD are well defined , the long-term consequences in adults and children need to be more comprehensively understood and quantified .
We conducted a systematic review evaluating the long-term outcomes ( defined as 2 years or more ) of ADHD with the goal of identifying long-term outcomes and the impact that any treatment ( pharmacological , non-pharmacological , or multimodal ) has on ADHD long-term outcomes .
The MTA at 8 years: prospective follow-up of children treated for combined-type ADHD in a multisite study.
OBJECTIVES To determine any long-term effects , 6 and 8 years after childhood enrollment , of the r and omly assigned 14-month treatments in the NIMH Collaborative Multisite Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder ( MTA ; N = 436 ) ; to test whether attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD ) symptom trajectory through 3 years predicts outcome in subsequent years ; and to examine functioning level of the MTA adolescents relative to their non-ADHD peers ( local normative comparison group ; N = 261 ) . METHOD Mixed-effects regression models with planned contrasts at 6 and 8 years tested a wide range of symptom and impairment variables assessed by  parent , teacher , and youth report . RESULTS In nearly every analysis , the originally r and omized treatment groups did not differ significantly on repeated measures or newly analyzed variables ( e.g. , grade s earned in school , arrests , psychiatric hospitalizations , other clinical ly relevant outcomes ) . Medication use decreased by 62 % after the 14-month controlled trial , but adjusting for this did not change the results . ADHD symptom trajectory in the first 3 years predicted 55 % of the outcomes . The MTA participants fared worse than the local normative comparison group on 91 % of the variables tested . CONCLUSIONS Type or intensity of 14 months of treatment for ADHD in childhood ( at age 7.0 - 9.9 years ) does not predict functioning 6 to 8 years later . Rather , early ADHD symptom trajectory regardless of treatment type is prognostic . This finding implies that children with behavioral and sociodemographic advantage , with the best response to any treatment , will have the best long-term prognosis . As a group , however , despite initial symptom improvement during treatment that is largely maintained after treatment , children with combined-type ADHD exhibit significant impairment in adolescence . Innovative treatment approaches targeting specific areas of adolescent impairment are needed
The following broad trends emerged : ( 1 ) without treatment , people with ADHD had poorer long-term outcomes in all categories compared with people without ADHD , and ( 2 ) treatment for ADHD improved long-term outcomes compared with untreated ADHD , although not usually to normal levels .
Conclusions This systematic review provides a synthesis of studies of ADHD long-term outcomes .
Current treatments may reduce the negative impact that untreated ADHD has on life functioning , but does not usually ' normalize ' the recipients
Background In childhood , attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD ) is characterized by age-inappropriate levels of inattentiveness/disorganization , hyperactivity/impulsiveness , or a combination thereof .
Although the criteria for ADHD are well defined , the long-term consequences in adults and children need to be more comprehensively understood and quantified .
We conducted a systematic review evaluating the long-term outcomes ( defined as 2 years or more ) of ADHD with the goal of identifying long-term outcomes and the impact that any treatment ( pharmacological , non-pharmacological , or multimodal ) has on ADHD long-term outcomes .