INATTENTION
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ADHD diagnoses have risen much faster than ADHD traits.
ADHD symptom and diagnosis trends in Swedish studies from 2004 to 2022
Among Swedish nine-year-olds, mean attention and concentration scores rose from 0.89 to 1.19, mean hyperactivity and impulsivity scores rose from 0.90 to 1.11, and registered ADHD diagnoses rose from 0.39% to 2.01%. Later Swedish evidence found parent-rated ADHD traits among 18-year-olds were stable among boys and rose slightly among girls from 2011 to 2019. Official estimates for children aged 10–17 found diagnosed ADHD rose from 7.1% to 10.5% among boys and from 2.9% to 6% among girls between 2015 and 2022. These results come from different studies and age groups. An illustrative continuous trait distribution has no natural diagnostic boundary.
Across recent decades, ADHD traits among Swedish children changed only a little.
What the evidence shows
In 19,271 Swedish nine-year-old twins assessed from 2004 to 2014, registered ADHD diagnoses increased more than fivefold. Parent-rated ADHD traits at the diagnostic-level extreme showed no clear increase, although average and subthreshold trait scores rose slightly.
Among Swedish 18-year-old twins assessed from 2011 to 2019, ADHD traits were stable among boys and rose slightly among girls. The increase was much smaller than the rise in diagnoses.
Official Swedish estimates for children aged 10–17 continued upward. Among boys, diagnosed ADHD rose from 7.1% in 2015 to 10.5% in 2022; among girls, it rose from 2.9% to 6%.
The later symptom and diagnosis results come from different age groups and sources. They support the same broad pattern, but they are not one continuous series.
These are population trends. They do not explain why any individual child was or was not diagnosed, or how much better recognition, changing practice, changing demands, or overdiagnosis contributed.