Critical Review of Psychological Article

Describe about the Critical Review of Psychological Article.

Any critical review of an article, research, or study determines the potential or competency of that particular article regarding its validity, utility and significance in future research work. This study is also one such critical review performed on Science News article named “New report finds 43 percent increase in ADHD diagnosis for US schoolchildren”. The learner critically reviews the claims provided in the article to test their viability, further, determining alternative explanations that support and reject these claims.

This article clearly claims that there has been 43% increase in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis from 2003 to 2011 in US school children between ages 5 to17 years. Further, the author also claims that there is a sharp rise (4.3% in 2003 to 7.3% in 2011) in ADHD diagnosis among girls in the U.S. within the time duration of 2003 to 2011. As per this article, 5.8 million US children now persist ADHD diagnosis that can lead to inattention and behavioural abnormalities in childhood and adulthood period of these children. These claims are based on data from National Children’s Survey (2003-2011) conducted by National Center for Health Statistics (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention) along with Maternal and Child health Bureau. This survey was based on the parent described occurrence of ADHD n their children. A report based on this data was published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (New report finds 43 percentage increase in ADHD diagnosis for US schoolchildren: Girls showed a sharp rise in ADHD diagnosis during the eight-year study period, 2016).

From the report data, it is been assumed in the article that girls in U.S. show a sharp increase in ADHD diagnosis with last eight years whereas the traditionally occurrence of ADHD was higher in boys rather than girls. The overall increases of ADHD diagnosis in US children are 43% whereas 55% increase was detected for ADHD diagnosis increases only among girls in the U.S. Further, the article claims that there is no proper research performed to determine the reason for the rise in ADHD diagnosis by researchers of this survey assuming that this ADHD diagnosis increase can be a true increase or outcome of over-diagnose in ADHD in the similar population.

Another claim initiated in the article is that, as per this National Survey Hispanic youth from last eight years have shown 83% increase in parent-reported ADHD diagnosis, therefore, it can be assumed that Hispanic group is the ethnic group having a highest prevalence to ADHD disorder among youths of US. Further, the article highlights that increased diagnosis of ADHD has resulted to increased prescription of drug Ritalin; hence, critics consider that over diagnosis of ADHD can lead to over-prescription of this drug among children. Lastly, another assumption in the article is that ADHD can lead to lack of attention as well as careless and impulsive mistakes from vulnerable children in their homes, social situations and schools that can mislead their personality and mental defects in adulthood as well.

The claims mentioned in this article are based on the National Survey from 2003 to 2011 data conducted by reputed authorities and organisations in the Unites States. Therefore, these claims persist a self-evaluated viability and reliability. In the article, the very first claim made by author indicating 43% increase in ADHD diagnosis from 2003 to 2011 in U.S. is highly viable and reliable claim because it is also supported by various other researches conducted on the same issue (ADHD) for U.S children. Visser et al. (2010) studied the data of National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) conducted from 2003-2007 where an increase in ADHD diagnosis rate from 7.8% to 9.5% is identified by researchers. This data indicates a clear 21.8% increase of ADHD diagnosis in these 4 years among children between age group 4-17years. This NSCH data was a cross-sectional, national and random survey based on parents reporting ADHD diagnosis for their children. According to Bloom, Cohen & Freeman (2009) studies ADHD is among on of the most persistent and powerful health issue in most U.S. children where 8% children are vulnerable to this health issue.

Further, the second claim mentioned in this study indicates that females (girls) show a rise in ADHD diagnosis from 2003-2011 with data 4.3% in 2003 to 7.3% in 2011. However, this claim does not persist reliable strength and validity because various other researches on ADHD issue rejects this assumption. Akinbami et al. (2011) indicated that from 1998 to 2009 these has been an increase in the ADHD disorder among children but ADHD existence rate among girls has always been lower than boys in the United States. The data of study indicates that ADHD prevalence is always been higher in boys with increasing rate from 9.9% to 12.3% than girls having ADHD rate increase from 3.6% to 5.5% from 2007 to 2009 among children aged 5-17 years. Further, Froehlich et al. (2007) studies on ADHD prevalence, recognition and treatment in the different socioeconomic group from 2001 to 2004 indicates that girls have lower ADHD prevalence than boys between age 8 to 15 years. Hence, the validity of the second claim in this article is questionable.

Further, the article claims that Hispanic youth showed a huge increase in ADHD diagnosis in last eight years. However, studies of Visser et al. (2010) reject this claim where the data indicated that Non-Hispanic population suffer more ADHD diagnosis (5.4%) than Hispanic population (2.4%) from 2003 to 2007. Further, Akinbami et al. (2011) studies indicate that Puerto Rican and Non-Hispanic (black and white) children are the major population that face ADHD prevalence as per data record from 1998 to 2009. Hence, this claim of the article also persists questionable validity. Lastly, the claim mentioned in article about developed psychological issues from ADHD is clearly valid because as per medical, biological and psychological studies ADHD leads to lack of attention and careless mistakes development potential in vulnerable that requires control in early ages of life to ignore potential harms in adulthood (Barnes, Bloom & Nahin, 2008).

Most of the claims in this article persist validity and reliability getting support from various other researches except the two claims stating that female children than male and Hispanic populations than any other ethical population persist increased ADHD diagnosis. As per learners viewpoint, ADHD is higher in males compared to females because Visser et al. (2014) studied that as per ADHD and gender differentiation, females are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD which has traditionally remained focused as the male functional disorder. Further, as an alternative modification for the second claim, the prevalence of disease varies from time to time in the different population, ethnic and race group. Therefore, the Hispanic population of a trial group in research can have higher ADHD diagnosis rate but it cannot be concluded that Hispanic group has highest ADHD diagnosis only based on data from one report as per this article because there are fewer researches supporting this viewpoint.

The article is very workable to understand the impact of ADHD in U.S children but lacks clarity and critical analysis for the claims, which are based only on one report data rather than multiple research eviden

References

Akinbami, L. J., Liu, X., Pastor, P. N., & Reuben, C. A. (2011). Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder among Children Aged 5-17 Years in the United States, 1998-2009. NCHS Data Brief. Number 70. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Barnes, P. M., Bloom, B., & Nahin, R. L. (2008). Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults and children: United States, 2007.

Bloom, B., Cohen, R. A., & Freeman, G. (2009). Summary health statistics for US children: National Health Interview Survey, 2008. Vital and health statistics. Series 10, Data from the National Health Survey, (244), 1-81.

Froehlich, T. E., Lanphear, B. P., Epstein, J. N., Barbaresi, W. J., Katusic, S. K., & Kahn, R. S. (2007). Prevalence, recognition, and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in a national sample of US children. Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine, 161(9), 857-864.

New report finds 43 percent increase in ADHD diagnosis for US schoolchildren: Girls showed a sharp rise in ADHD diagnosis during eight-year study period. (2016). ScienceDaily. Retrieved 26 September 2016, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151208150630.htm

Visser, S. N., Bitsko, R. H., Danielson, M. L., Perou, R., & Blumberg, S. J. (2010). Increasing prevalence of parent-reported attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder among children—United States, 2003 and 2007.Morbidity and mortality weekly report, 59(44), 1439-1443.

Visser, S. N., Danielson, M. L., Bitsko, R. H., Holbrook, J. R., Kogan, M. D., Ghandour, R. M., ... & Blumberg, S. J. (2014). Trends in the parent-report of health care provider-diagnosed and medicated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: United States, 2003–2011. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 53(1), 34-46.

 

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