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Julia Wilson, BA
Pronouns
She/her
Rank
Research Staff
Institution
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Department
Psychiatry/Connors Center for Women's Health and Gender Biology
Authors
Wilson J (1), Fida D (1), Wiley A (1), Maurer R (2), Spagnolo PA (1,3) 1: Department of Psychiatry & Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA 2: Harvard Catalyst 3: Harvard Medical School
Principal Investigator
Categories:
Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are often comorbid and share common neurobiological substrates. However, the prevalence of each disorder varies by gender: men are more often diagnosed with ADHD than women, while women are twice as likely as men to develop PTSD. Both race and age also have distinct influences on the prevalence of these disorders. Here, we conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to investigate the influence of gender, age, and race on the prevalence of co-occurring PTSD and ADHD.
A scoping review of PsycINFO and PubMed yielded 10 eligible studies with complete outcome data. We ran fixed-effects meta-analyses of the sex-stratified prevalence of ADHD/PTSD using pooled odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). Fixed-effects subgroup analyses were performed using age as a subgroup. Effect size heterogeneity was assessed using the I2 index and Cochran’s Q test.
In the whole sample (N= 12,139; F= 6188, M= 5951), the diagnosis of ADHD/PTSD was significantly higher in women than men (OR= 1.46, p < .01). When stratified by the age of the enrolled sample (minors vs adults), two distinct patterns emerged: comorbid ADHD/PTSD was more often diagnosed in boys compared to girls (OR = 0.81), while the opposite trend was observed in adults, with women exhibiting greater comorbidity rates than men (OR = 1.69, p = .03). Within the two studies reporting race/ethnicity data (N=762), non-white individuals were more likely to be diagnosed with PTSD/ADHD than white individuals (OR = 2.38, p = 0.05). Between-study heterogeneity was low-to-moderate and not significant (I2 = 40%; p=.09), validating the fixed-effects model (Figure 3). Our main finding indicates an age-related association between gender and ADHD/PTSD, which may have important mechanistic and clinical implications. Future studies should investigate the intersection between sex, race, and age in driving ADHD/PTSD comorbidity.
