ABSTRACT
The diagnosis and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children, adolescents, and adults continue to generate controversy. Is ADHD a valid syndrome? Is ADHD overdiagnosed? Are physicians overmedicating children with ADHD? With this controversy as a backdrop, the first National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus committee for a psychiatric disorder convened in 1998 to evaluate existing data on ADHD. The committee supported the idea that ADHD is a brain-based disorder that is impairing if untreated, although it is not yet known if ADHD symptoms represent a discrete disease or one extreme of a continuous trait. The committee also agreed that controlled research data support behavioral treatment and short-term psychostimulant treatment of children and adolescents with ADHD, whereas longterm safety and efficacy have not been established (NIH, 2000).
