These guidelines help clinicians across different countries to make standardized assessments. This is achieved by specifying how to assess the presence of current and previous symptoms of ADHD, applying a developmental perspective, including information on the most commonly seen comorbid disorders, considering differential diagnoses, and evaluating the impact of the symptoms. All guidelines stress the importance of performing multidisciplinary assessments with the following content: clinical interview with the parents, interview with the child, assessing information from teachers (in kindergarten, preschool or school), psychometric tests (including psychological testing), and a physical evaluation. The diagnosis should not be made by doing just one of these parts of the full assessment.
Just as diagnostic classifications characterizes the phenomenology of disorders, the clinical guidelines act as important extensions to the diagnostic classifications and describe uniform ways of evaluating whether the diagnostic criteria are actually fulfilled. Both are important measures in ensuring evidence-based assessments, especially during times of growing international concern regarding the increased number of patients diagnosed with ADHD.
In some countries, regulatory authorities have decided that ADHD assessment and initiation of treatment is reserved for specialists (child and adolescents psychiatrists and pediatricians) and that general practitioners are not licensed to initiate treatment [12, 13]. Such regulatory differences between European countries and North America may also affect national prevalence rates and have an impact on standards in diagnosing [3].
Conflict of interest Within the last 3 years Dr. Dalsgaard had no disclosures of conflicts of interest (2010–2012), but in 2008 and 2009, Dr. Dalsgaard received speaker’s fees from Eli Lilly and Novartis. This article is part of the supplement ‘‘The Future of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology: the Impact of DSM 5 and of guidelines for assessment and treatment’’. This supplement was not sponsored by outside commercial interests.