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The increasing prevalence of reported diagnoses of childhood psychiatric disorders: a descriptive multinational comparison

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Abstract

The objective of this study is to compare the time trend of reported diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), hyperkinetic disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder across four countries after standardizing the study period, diagnostic codes used to define the conditions and statistical analyses across countries. We use a population-based cohort, including all live-born children in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Western Australia, from January 1, 1990, through December 31, 2007 and followed through December 31, 2011. The main outcome measure is age-specific prevalence of diagnoses reported to population-based registry systems in each country. We observe an increase in age-specific prevalence for reported diagnoses of all four disorders across birth-year cohorts in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and (for ASD) Western Australia. Our results highlight the increase in the last 20 years in the number of children and families in contact with health care systems for diagnosis and services for an array of childhood neuropsychiatric disorders, a phenomenon not limited to ASD. Also, the age of diagnosis of the studied disorders was often much higher than what is known of the typical age of onset of symptoms, and we observe limited leveling off in the incidence rate with increasing age.

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Acknowledgments

Hjördis O. Atladottir and Stefan Hansen had full access to the Danish data, David Gyllenberg and Mika Gissler had full access to the Finnish data, Sven Sandin had full access to the Swedish data, and Amanda Langridge had full access to the Australian data. These authors take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analyses. Epidemiological studies in Sweden were supported in part by the National Institutes of Health of the USA (Grant R56MH097849 to Joseph Buxbaum, Christina Hultman and Abraham Reichenberg). David Gyllenberg received research grants from the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, the Foundation for Pediatric Research in Finland and the Finnish Medical Foundation. Amanda Langridge was supported by Program Grant #572742 from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), and Helen Leonard by a NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship #572568. Jenny Bourke was supported by funding from Disability Services Commission for the IDEA Database.

Conflict of interest

The authors of this study had no conflict of interest with the study results.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark

    Hjördis O. Atladottir

  2. Section of Biostatistics, Department for Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Hjördis O. Atladottir, Stefan N. Hansen & Erik T. Parner

  3. Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, USA

    David Gyllenberg

  4. Department of Child Psychiatry, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    David Gyllenberg

  5. Centre for Child Health Research, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

    Amanda Langridge, Helen Leonard & Jenny Bourke

  6. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sven Sandin & Christina M. Hultman

  7. National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland

    Mika Gissler

  8. Turku University, Turku, Finland

    Mika Gissler

  9. NHV Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Mika Gissler

  10. Departments of Psychiatry and Preventive Medicine, and Seaver Center for Autism Research and Treatment, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Abraham Reichenberg

  11. Section of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Diana E. Schendel

  12. Department of Economics and Business, National Centre for Register-based Research, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Diana E. Schendel

  13. Lundbeck Foundation Initiative for Integrative Psychiatric Research, iPSYCH, Aarhus, Denmark

    Diana E. Schendel

  14. Division of Tics, OCD, and Related Disorders, Department of Psychiatry, and the Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Dorothy E. Grice

  15. Department of Psychiatry, Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, and the Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Joseph D. Buxbaum

Authors
  1. Hjördis O. Atladottir
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  2. David Gyllenberg
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  3. Amanda Langridge
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  4. Sven Sandin
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  5. Stefan N. Hansen
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  6. Helen Leonard
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  7. Mika Gissler
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  8. Abraham Reichenberg
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  9. Diana E. Schendel
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  10. Jenny Bourke
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  11. Christina M. Hultman
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  12. Dorothy E. Grice
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  13. Joseph D. Buxbaum
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  14. Erik T. Parner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hjördis O. Atladottir.

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Atladottir, H.O., Gyllenberg, D., Langridge, A. et al. The increasing prevalence of reported diagnoses of childhood psychiatric disorders: a descriptive multinational comparison. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 24, 173–183 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-014-0553-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-014-0553-8

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