Original title: Psychiatric comorbidity, burden of sickness absence and sex-specific characteristics of working individuals with ADHD treated in primary care in the Finnish occupational health system: cross-sectional register study
Mia Tuokko, Antti‐Jussi Ämmälä, Tiina Paunio, Simo Taimela +1 · October 2026
Scientists examined records of 2,117 working adults diagnosed with ADHD in Finland. They discovered that 80.5% also had other mental health conditions, mostly anxiety and depression. The study revealed clear differences between men and women. Men were more likely to receive ADHD stimulant medications alone. Women more often received antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs. Women also missed significantly more work due to mental health issues, with nearly triple the risk of long-term sick leave compared to men.
You are riding a bicycle on a daily commute to school or work. Keeping the bike rolling is hard enough on its own, but then you get hit by heavy rain and headwind at the exact same time. The ride takes far more effort, and you are much more likely to have to pull over and take a break. Here, the daily commute is holding down a job, the basic difficulty is ADHD, and the added storm represents conditions like anxiety and depression that make continuing work much harder.
People often assume that having a steady job means ADHD causes few serious problems. This study reveals that employed adults with ADHD frequently face additional mental health conditions, like anxiety and depression. It also shows that women face substantially higher rates of sick leave and receive different medications than men, highlighting that workplace healthcare must adapt to support them effectively.
The abstract doesn't say if findings generalize outside the Finnish occupational health system. It relies on a cross-sectional descriptive design that cannot determine causality, and sickness absence and medication analyses were limited to a 1,447-patient subset.
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Psychiatric comorbidity, burden of sickness absence and sex-specific characteristics of working individuals with ADHD treated in primary care in the Finnish occupational health system: cross-sectional register study — Mia Tuokko, Antti‐Jussi Ämmälä, Tiina Paunio et al. — The British Journal of Psychiatry — doi:10.1192/bjp.2026.10794
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.