Overdiagnosis is not a problem, but misdiagnosis may be as people are driven into the private sector by long waits, and sadly, missed diagnoses remain common —Tamsin Ford

Experts are warning that far from being over-diagnosed, people with ADHD are waiting too long for assessment, support and treatment.

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[–] ageedizzle@piefed.ca 15 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Serious question: how would we be able to detect if we’ve over diagnosed a mental disorder such as ADHD? What would evidence for that look like?

[–] AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml 10 points 16 hours ago

From the linked research article:

‘Over-diagnosis’ is observed when the prevalence of diagnoses made in clinical services, referred to as administrative prevalence (based on healthcare databases or insurance claims) exceeds prevalence estimates based on accurate assessments in representative population-based samples. Over-diagnosis may occur when diagnostic criteria are not applied with sufficient rigour, leading to false-positive cases. Over-diagnosis may also happen when people inappropriately self-diagnose. Notably, for individuals with milder or subclinical symptoms, a diagnosis can sometimes do more harm than good, creating stigma or leading to low-benefit treatments with significant side-effects.

So is Admin Prevalence > Prevalence Estimates where the estimates are made based on representative population-based samples?