APSARD President Brooke Molina, PhD, on the Case for Adult ADHD Guidelines

Brooke Molina, PhD, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and current president of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders (APSARD), described the origins and rationale behind the organization's new adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) guidelines.¹

She noted that no existing US guidelines currently address the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in adulthood, and that the effort to create them began more than 4 years ago, building on a series of papers published in Psychiatric Annals in 2023 that publicly introduced the guidelines' mission and methodology.²

Molina said the guidelines are needed in part because many US practitioners were never trained to recognize how ADHD persists from childhood into adulthood—including how it presents, what it requires diagnostically, and how it should be treated—since understanding of adult ADHD has developed largely in recent years.

While she declined to discuss the specific content of the guidelines ahead of their official public release, Molina confirmed that diagnostic complexity is a central consideration. She emphasized that ADHD in adults frequently co-occurs with other mental health conditions, requiring clinicians to assess comorbidities rather than focus on ADHD in isolation, and to carefully evaluate the timeline of symptom presentation to distinguish ADHD from other mental health difficulties an individual may be experiencing.

Dr Molina is a professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, Pediatrics, and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also the President of the American Professional Society of ADHD and Related Disorders.

References

1. APSARD announces launch of final review stage for U.S. Adult ADHD Guidelines; publication anticipated this fall. News release. August 2026. Accessed September 14, 2026. https://apsard.org/Web/News/News-Guideline-Update.aspx

2. Adler LA. Development of United States guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of adults with ADHD. Psychiatric Annals. 2023;53(10):440-441.