People with ADHD are twice as likely to die prematurely, often due to accidents
Led by Søren Dalsgaard from Aarhus University in Denmark, the large nationwide cohort study followed nearly 2 million individuals from the Danish national registers, including more than 32000 people with ADHD, from their first birthday to 2013 (a maximum of 32 years). The causes of premature death were assessed to compare individuals with and without ADHD. During follow-up, 107 individuals with ADHD died. People diagnosed with ADHD were about twice as likely to die prematurely as people without the disorder, even after adjusting for factors known to affect the risk of early death including age, sex, family history of psychiatric disorders, maternal and paternal age, and parental education. This increased risk of premature death in people with ADHD was mainly driven by deaths from unnatural causes, more than half of which were caused by accidents (42 deaths among 79 people for whom the cause of death was known). The risk of dying prematurely increased with age at diagno...