Dr. Avnish Jolly:According to Journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, May 2008, Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do about Thirty day’s less work each year than people who don’t have this condition’. Recently a study from the World Health Organization (WHO) demonstrates. To evaluate the prevalence of ADHD among workers and its consequences in the workplace, the researchers surveyed 7,075 between the age group18- to 44-years. They were paid workers or self-employed as part of the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The survey included workers in ten countries i.e. Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA.
Dr. Ron de Graaf , Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht, the study’s lead shared workers are at work, but the quality and quantity of the work is less than is usual. Workplace programs to screen employees for ADHD and provide treatment could be a cost-effective way to improve productivity, de Graaf and his team say, especially since just a fraction of individuals with the condition were getting treatment.
ADHD manifests itself somewhat differently among adults than children, de Graaf noted, and symptoms can vary from person to person. "People can be very lively, very hyperactive, but you also have people who are not from the outside hyperactive but are in their work doing a lot of things at the same time, they’re not focused on one job at one time," he explained.
The researchers found, 3.5 percent of individuals surveyed met diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Males were much more likely to have the disorder, while ADHD was less common among professionals. People with ADHD said they were out of work for 8.4 more days than people without ADHD. They also reported 21.7 more days in which they didn’t get as much done as they usually did, and 13.6 more days in which they cut back on the quality of their work or worked less carefully. Overall, individuals with ADHD had 22.1 more total days "out of role," meaning they weren’t fulfilling their work demands, than people without
The condition is characterized by negligence, hyperactivity, and impulsivity and is more common among children in the early school years. It is hard for these children to control their behaviour and pay attention. The National Institutes of Health estimated that between 3 and 5 percent of children have ADHD, or approximately 2 million children in the United States only.
In the Netherlands, 2.7 percent of people with ADHD reported getting some type of treatment, while 12.6 percent of those in the US did, but none of the individuals with ADHD in any of the eight other countries were being treated. However, many were receiving treatment for some type of mental health or substance abuse problem.
Workers with ADHD might be to allow them to concentrate on a single task per day, rather than requiring them to do several things at once study suggested.