ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Adverse childhood experiences in adults completing ADHD and autism diagnostic assessment: associations with diagnostic outcome and psychiatric symptom burden.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Adult ADHD and autism assessment services increasingly receive clinically heterogeneous referrals in which the sequelae of childhood adversity may overlap with neurodevelopmental presentations. The distribution and clinical significance of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in this referral population remain insufficiently characterized. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional cohort study analyzed routinely collected clinical data from 389 adults who attended either the ADHD or the autism diagnostic pathway of a regional National Health Service (NHS) Adult ADHD and Autism Service. The analytic sample consisted of 233 adults with a definitive diagnostic outcome at data extraction; 149 were awaiting an outcome, six had an inconclusive outcome, and one underage case was excluded. ACE exposure was measured with the 10-item ACE Questionnaire. Psychiatric symptom burden was assessed with routinely administered screening instruments (PHQ-9, GAD-7, AUDIT, DAST-10, MDQ, HELPS and IPDS). The primary analysis examined the association between ACE score, analyzed as a continuous variable, and diagnostic outcome, with adjustment for age, gender and assessment pathway in binary logistic regression; all other analyses were exploratory. Results: Forty-seven participants (20.2%) received a diagnosis of ADHD or autism and 186 (79.8%) did not meet DSM-5 criteria. The mean ACE score was 3.10 (SD = 2.59), and 39.7% of participants reported four or more ACEs, compared with 8.3% in an English national household survey. Participants who were not diagnosed reported higher ACE scores than participants who were diagnosed (3.37 vs. 2.04; Hedges Conclusions: ACE exposure in this referral cohort was substantially higher than English population estimates and was associated with diagnostic non-confirmation and with greater psychiatric symptom burden. These findings support consideration of childhood adversity within trauma-informed formulation during adult neurodevelopmental assessment. Prospective studies incorporating direct measures of trauma-related psychopathology are needed to determine whether trauma-related mechanisms contribute to neurodevelopmental-like presentations. The cross-sectional retrospective design precludes causal inference.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.