Marín AM, Seco FL, Serrano SM, García SA, Gaviria Gómez AM, Ney I. Do firstborn children have an increased risk of ADHD?
J Atten Disord 2014;
18:594-7. [PMID:
22826511 DOI:
10.1177/1087054712445066]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
Although previous reports have found no birth-order influence on ADHD risk, the authors hypothesize that being the firstborn is a risk factor for developing ADHD.
METHOD
They selected all of the currently treated ADHD outpatients (n = 748) from our database. Families with adopted sons, nonnuclear families, and families with only one child and with sons (affected or unaffected) younger than 6 or older than 18 years were excluded. A total of 181 families with 213 ADHD sons met the inclusion criteria. We used all siblings without a clinical diagnosis of ADHD and who had no contact with our service as our unaffected controls (n = 173).
RESULTS
The bivariate analysis showed that ADHD was associated with birth order and that firstborn children had nearly twice the ADHD risk of children with other birth orders.
CONCLUSION
birth order can be an ADHD risk factor in clinical samples.
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