Bipolar disorder co-morbidity in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Abstract The present study aimed at: (1) exploring rate and clinical features of superimposed bipolar disorder (BD) in Italian children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), compared with a community sample, matched for age and gender; (2) exploring predictors of BD in ADHD children, by comparing ADHD children with or without superimposed BD. We studied 173 consecutive drug-naive outpatients with ADHD (156 males and 17 females, mean age of 9.2 ± 2.3 years, age range 6–17.5 years), diagnosed with a clinical interview (Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL)); the control group consisted of a community-based sample of 100 healthy children. The rate of children with a diagnosis of BD was higher in the ADHD group (29/173, 16.7%) compared with controls (1/100, 1%), ( P