Objective:

we aimed to establish the prevalence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in schoolchildren aged 6 to 17 years in Barranquilla, to obtain an epidemiological perspective of this disorder in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

Materials and methods:

we selected 383 children enrolled in a single school and administered screening tests (symptoms checklist and BASC). In children with scores that suggested the presence of abnormalities, we scheduled another assessment by means of a structured interview (MINI).

Results:

of the 383 children that underwent the initial assessment, 178 exhibited abnormalities, of which 59 (15%) received a final diagnosis of ADHD (38 male and 21 women, corresponding to a 2:1 ratio). The distribution by subtypes was 7.3% combined, 5% inattentive and 3.1% hyperactive. Overall, 23% of the children in the sample had some form of neuropsychiatric disorder, and we found that the inattentive type was significantly associated with agoraphobia and episodes of depression and the hyperactive type with oppositional defiant disorder and anxiety disorder, while in the combined type, depression was associated with an increased risk of suicide.

Conclusions:

the prevalence of ADHD in Barranquilla was similar to the prevalence reported in other regions of Colombia, both overall and for each of the subtypes, and in its distribution by sex or comorbidities. These proportions were not associated to psychosocial factors, which supports the hypothesis of a multifactorial aetiology of ADHD.

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