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Tics and psychiatric comorbidity in children and adolescents
Author(s) -
Gadow Kenneth D,
Nolan Edith E,
Sprafkin Joyce,
Schwartz Joseph
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
developmental medicine and child neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.658
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1469-8749
pISSN - 0012-1622
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8749.2002.tb00820.x
Subject(s) - tics , comorbidity , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , psychology , psychiatry , attention deficit , psychiatric comorbidity , clinical psychology , pediatrics , medicine
This study examined comorbid psychiatric symptoms in a large, community‐based sample of children and adolescents. The study sample comprised a total of 3006 school children: 413 preschool (3 to 5 years; 237 males, 176 females; mean age 4 years 2 months, SD 8 months), 1520 elementary school (5 to 12 years; 787 males, 733 females; mean age 8 years 2 months, SD 1 year 11 months), and 1073 secondary school children (12 to 18 years; 573 males, 500 females; mean age 14 years 4 months, SD 1 year 10 months), all of whom were attending regular education programs. Children were evaluated with a teacher‐completed DSM‐IV‐referenced rating scale. The sample was divided into four groups: attention‐deficit‐hyperactivity disorder with tics (ADHD+tics), ADHD without tics (ADHD), tics without ADHD (T), and a comparison group i.e. neither ADHD nor tics (Non). The percentage of children with tic behaviors varied with age: preschool children (22.3%), elementary school children (7.8%), and adolescents (3.4%). Tic behaviors were more common in males than females, regardless of comorbid ADHD symptoms. For many psychiatric symptoms, screening prevalence rates were highest for the ADHD groups (ADHD+tics ADHDTNon). However, obsessive‐compulsive and simple and social phobia symptoms were more common in the groups with tic behavior. Findings for a community‐based sample show many similarities with studies of clinically referred samples suggesting that teacher‐completed ratings of DSM‐IV symptoms may be a useful methodology for investigating the phenomenology of tic disorders.