Evidence of potential overdiagnosis and overtreatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents: protocol for a scoping review.

Abstract

Worldwide, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis rates in children and adolescents have been increasing consistently over the past decades, fuelling a debate about the underlying reasons for this trend. While many hypothesise that a substantial number of these additional cases are overdiagnosed, to date there has been no comprehensive evaluation of evidence for or against this hypothesis. Thus, with this scoping review we aim to synthesise published evidence on the topic in order to investigate whether existing literature is consistent with the occurrence of overdiagnosis and/or overtreatment of ADHD in children and adolescents.