Preliminary evaluation after setting up a post-assessment attention deficit hyperactivity disorder clinic in a community setting.

backgroundAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neuro-behavioural condition affecting school age children, older adolescents and young adults. It often leads to challenging educational, social and personal difficulties and co-morbidities which makes it an appropriate focus for the setting up of a dedicated clinic.

aimThis service innovation was planned to ensure that ADHD patients receive regular multi-disciplinary reviews and to improve the training standards of junior doctors. We hypothesised that multimodal treatment approach shall be more acceptable to parents and children with ADHD than medication alone. It was our belief that the setting up of a post-assessment ADHD clinic will lead to efficient use of existing resources thereby saving clinical time.

methodOur local audit identified 51 young people with ADHD stabilised on medication. One year after setting up the post-assessment ADHD clinic, feedback was obtained using questionnaires from clinicians and parents.

resultsSeventy-five percent of parents and all the clinicians responded. Parents indicated that they were quite satisfied with the changes made. Clinicians were of the opinion that the dedicated ADHD clinic was more efficient in meeting the children's needs.

conclusionThis survey validated our hypothesis that multi-modal reviews were more acceptable to parents of children with ADHD. The setting up of the dedicated clinic proved to be an efficient way of using the existing resources without any additional costs.