Ehsan Ullah Syed, Haider Naqvi, Sajida Abdul Hussein.
Frequency, clinical characteristics and co-morbidities of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder presenting to a child psychiatric clinic at a University Hospital in Pakistan.
J Pak Psych Soc Jan ;3(2):74-7.

Objective: This study was aimed to describe the frequency, gender ratio, clinical characteristics and co morbidities of ADHD in Pakistani population. Design: Descriptive study Place and duration of study: Department of Psychiatry of Aga Khan University Karachi from June 2002 to June 2004. Subjects and Methods: We reviewed the case records of 166 consecutive referrals at our child psychiatric clinics during the above mentioned time period . Results: Clinical notes of 166 patients presenting to child psychiatric clinic from July 2002 to July 2004 were reviewed. Sixty three (34%) children were diagnosed with ADHD. Gender ratio was 1 to 5 for females to males. Females presented more with in-attentive type of disorder as opposed to males who had more hyper-active, impulsive symptamatology. One third of the sample had co morbid psychiatric illnesses. Mental retardation and depression was more prevalent in our sample. Developmental abnormalities were also reported in one third of the cases. Family history of psychiatric illness was present in 50 `X> of cases. Conclusion: The syndrome of ADHD has broadly similar prevalence, clinical characteristics and co morbidities in clinical population in Pakistan to that reported in the literature from studies in Western countries.

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