Claims

Adult onset of ADHD is rare and most people exceeding the symptom threshold for diagnosis are, on closer examination, false positives

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2023: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? Sibley et al. concluded that adult onset of ADHD is rare, and that most people exceeding the symptom threshold for diagnosis are, on closer examination, false positives. → Franke 2018

Evidence

Franke 2018

Franke, B.; Michelini, G.; Asherson, P.; Banaschewski, T.; Bilbow, A.; Buitelaar, J.K.; Cormand, B.; Faraone, S.V; Ginsberg, Y.; Haavik, J.; Kuntsi, J.; Larsson, H.; Lesch, K.P.; Ramos-Quiroga, J.A.; Réthelyi, J.M.; Ribases, M.; Reif, A. (2018). Live fast, die young? A review on the developmental trajectories of ADHD across the lifespan. European Neuropsychopharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2018.08.001

q2 · i? · review · r2

Narrative review section on adult onset ADHD, reporting the conclusion of Sibley et al. (2017) that "adult onset of ADHD is rare" and most threshold-exceeding cases are "false positives". The review frames this as consistent with the false positive paradox in population studies. No effect size printed.

"Consistent with this idea, Sibley et al. (2017) concluded that adult onset of ADHD is rare, and that most people exceeding the symptom threshold for diagnosis are, on closer exami- nation, false positives."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id adult-onset-adhd-rare-false-positives
title Adult onset of ADHD is rare and most people exceeding the symptom threshold for diagnosis are, on closer examination, false positives
description Adult onset of ADHD is rare and most people exceeding the symptom threshold for diagnosis are, on closer examination, false positives
status review
evidence_strength weak
newest_evidence 2018
recheck_by 2023
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-16
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — franke-2018

Frontmatter is the page's machine-readable record — see the Schema & Guide.