Patterns of Injuries Among Children Diagnosed With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Aseer Region, Southwestern Saudi Arabia

Background Globally, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder that affects children. In 2011, there was an ADHD diagnosis prevalence of around 8% among children (4-17 years) in the US. ADHD-affected children are more prone to physical injuries such as physical trauma, accidental poisoning, burns, etc. This study was aimed to evaluate the association of ADHD with severe injuries, the influence of age and gender on this association, and the impact of ADHD medications on the frequency of such injuries. Methodology This study was conducted in three governmental and three private settings in Aseer region. The files of children who were diagnosed with ADHD in the study settings were reviewed for a 12-month time period. Data were extracted from the medical files using a pre-structured data extraction sheet to avoid errors and inter-rater bias. The extracted data included child gender, age, duration of disease, and injury-related data. A brief questionnaire had been applied to mothers regarding mothers' attitudes towards injuries among their children, adherence to medications, as well as the reasons for non-adherence to medications and clinical visits in a non-adherent group during the clinic visit. Results One hundred and sixty-three children with a diagnosis of ADHD completed the study. The affected children were aged between two and 15 years (mean: 7.8 ± 2.9 years). An exact of 116 (71.2%) children were males. An exact of 70 (42.9%) affected children had trauma. The most-reported traumas were superficial injuries (84.3%), burns (48.6%), fractures (37.1%), deep injuries (31.4%), and broken or lost teeth (28.6%). About 52% of the children were adherent to medications and their clinical visits. Among the non-adherent group, the most reported reasons were parents’ care and attention (20.5%), followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and delay in visits times (16.7%). Regarding mothers' attitudes towards injuries among children with ADHD, 49.1% of the mothers agreed that there is an association between a child with ADHD and being traumatized while 22.7% said there was no relation. Conclusions In our cohort, the majority of the children with ADHD were boys at primary school age. Association of the history of the disease with trauma was not uncommon, and most injuries were not severe, but burns and deep injuries were reported among considered portions.