Bridging the Gap Between Depression and Epilepsy: A Call for Integrated Neuropsychiatric Care.

To identify articles describing incidence and/or prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), we searched PubMed from database inception to December 18th, 2025, using the search terms: (1) ‘attention∗deficit∗hyperactivity disorder’ and ‘ADHD’, and (2) ‘incidence’ or ‘prevalence’, with no language restrictions. Most studies identified from this search focused on children and young people, with high levels of variability in estimated prevalence depending on various factors (e.g., year, design, and method of assessing ADHD). Studies also showed increasing rates of diagnosed ADHD over time, though recent estimates from the past few years are not yet available. Additionally, the extent to which recorded ADHD in primary care in England reflects underlying population prevalence remains unknown, despite high levels of public and political attention on this. This study uses large-scale English healthcare record data to examine ADHD diagnosis across the lifespan and over time. These findings are used to compare recorded ADHD diagnosis rates with published population prevalence estimates. To our knowledge, we are the first to compare observed diagnosis rates with widely cited global prevalence estimates to quantify the gap between recorded diagnosis rates and population prevalence estimates of ADHD. Analysing prevalence in mid-2025 and trends from 2000 to 2024, we provide detailed estimates of current diagnostic coverage and how this has changed over time, including variation by age and sex. Applying global prevalence estimates of ADHD across the life course and comparing these with an overall observed diagnosis rate of 1.19%, we find that rates of ADHD recorded in primary care are substantially below published population prevalence estimates across all age groups. This is particularly pronounced in adult life, particularly in middle and older age.