j Abstract Background The impact of attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in the Netherlands on health care utilisation, costs and quality of life of these children, as well as of their parents is unknown. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the direct medical costs of patients suffering from ADHD and their quality of life as well as the direct medical costs of their mothers. Study design We selected a group of 70 children who were being treated by a paediatrician for ADHD based on the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for ADHD. For comparison's sake, we also included a non-matched group of 35 children with behaviour problems and 60 children with no behaviour problem from a large school population-based study on the detection of ADHD. We collected information on the health care utilisation of the children applying the Trimbos and iMTA questionnaire on Costs associated with Psychiatric illness' (TiC-P). Their health related quality of life was collected by using the Dutch 50-item parent version of the Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ PF-50). Measurements were at baseline and at 6 months. Subsequently, we collected data on the health utilisation of the mothers and their production losses due to absence from work and reduced efficiency. Results The mean direct medical costs per ADHD patient per year were e2040 or e1173 when leaving out one patient with a long-term hospital admission, compared to e288 for the group of children with behaviour problems and e177 for the group of children with no behaviour problems. The direct medical costs for children who had psychiatric co-morbidities were significantly higher compared to children with ADHD alone. The mean medical costs per year for the mothers of the ADHD patients were significantly higher than for the mothers of the children with behaviour problems and the mothers of children with no behaviour problems respectively e728, e202 and e154. The physical summary score showed no significant differences between the groups. However, the score on the Psychosocial Summary Score dimension was significantly lower for ADHD patients compared to the scores of the children in the two other samples. The mean annual indirect costs due to absence from work and reduced efficiency at work were e2243 for the mothers of the ADHD patients compared to e408 for the mothers

The present study assesses the population prevalence of DSM-IV disorders among native and immigrant children living in low socio-economic status (SES) innercity neighborhoods in the Netherlands. In the first phase of a two-phase epidemiological design, teachers screened an ethnically diverse sample of 2041 children aged 6-10 years

The present study examined construct equivalence of the teacher Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and compared mean scores in an ethnically diverse sample of children living in the Netherlands. Elementary schoolteachers completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for 2,185 children aged 6 to 10 years of the four largest ethnic groups in the Netherlands, namely native Dutch ( n = 684) and Moroccan ( n = 702), Turkish ( n = 434), and Surinamese ( n = 365) immigrant children. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis suggested the factor structure of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire to be invariant across children’s ethnicity and gender. Additionally, the factor structure appeared to be similar for Dutch and Surinamese teachers. However, mean scores on emotional problems, hyperactivity, conduct problems, prosocial behavior, and impairment varied significantly according to ethnicity and gender. Mean scores on peer problems differed significantly for boys and girls, but not across ethnicity. Whether mean differences reflect a method bias or actual differences in classroom behaviors is discussed and needs further research.

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