My whole life I've had issues with hyperactivity and the inability to stay focused. I never realized it was an issue until I got into high school and small tasks were hard to accomplish because my attention span was so short. Luckily, my mom is a doctor and decided to test me for ADHD as the possible reason. However, a lot of other girls struggle with ADHD and are not given the tools for diagnosis or referred for treatment, unlike men who are more likely to be referred. Furthermore, I had heard that women with ADHD are less likely to be diagnosed than men and so I decided this was an interesting topic to research.
The first article I came across called ADHD in women a "hidden disorder" since the symptoms are less obvious and also other existing conditions/disorders are different in woman than in men which makes it hard to diagnose (i.e. anxiety and/or substance disorders) (Patricia Quinn, 2005). Also women have a tendency for fluctuating hormones which also muddies the picture as to whether ADHD is the cause of the symptoms, or if it is another disorder, or even a mix.
Additionally, I found another article which illustrated how there are varying symptoms between males and females and this is why men are usually more likely to be diagnosed. It was said that women are more predominately inattentive than men and that women have lower self-efficacy and poorer coping strategies, higher rates of depression and anxiety, but have lower aggressive behaviors (Julia Rucklidge, 2010). Just like in the previous article, these other factors can sometimes make it difficult for women to be diagnosed as easily as men and this is a possible reason as to why we see a higher percent of males with ADHD than woman.
Finally, more research is necessary to help further diagnosis and detect symptoms in adolescence, so that these men and women can understand what is going on and have a treatment plan earlier on in life, to hopefully prevent these other disorders from occurring, or possibly ease the severity. This was an interesting topic to research for me since I do have ADHD and I think it is very important that more women get this diagnosis, so that they can fully understand what is going on with them and not feel like something is innately wrong with them.
References:
Patricia O. Quinn, Treating adolescent girls and women with ADHD: Gender‐Specific issues (2005),
Rucklidge JJ. Gender differences in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2010 Jun;33(2):357-73. doi: 10.1016/j.psc.2010.01.006. PMID: 20385342.
This is super interesting, Whitney! I am in Abnormal Psychology right now, and I remember being super confused as to why there is such a large disparity between girls and boys being diagnosed with ADHD. Hearing that more women present as the inattnetive subtype of ADHD, compared to the hyperactive-impulsive subtype makes a lot of sense why more girls with ADHD go unnoticed; if they are less disruptive in the classroom, they are less likely to be seen as having any kind of learning disability.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if other factors aside from the display of symtoms affects the rate of diagnosis, specifically in development. I found a couple articles explaining that regions in girl's brains- especially in regard to gray matter- mature as much as 1-2 years faster than boys with ADHD (Lenroot et al. 2007). However, there is still part of me that wonders how much the rate of diagnosis is affected by gender bias in schools...
Lenroot RK, Gogtay N, Greenstein DK, et al. Sexual dimorphism of brain developmental trajectories during childhood and adolescence. Neuroimage. 2007;36:1065–1073.