Attachment F1 sample description

Longitudinal Follow-up of Youth with ADHD

Attachment F1 Sample Description

Attachment F1 – PLAY baseline study sample description

For the initial baseline study, data collection was done by school district. For South Carolina, all schools in one district with a diverse student body were invited to participate. Students from rural, suburban and some urban neighborhoods combine to form a student population representative of a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This district, Richland County School District Two, serves the capital city of Columbia, SC. In 2000-2001, the district reported an average daily enrollment of about 7,500 students in grades K through 5, in 13 elementary schools. Richland Two School District is characterized by a diverse student body. Students from rural, suburban and some urban neighborhoods combine to form a student population representative of a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The overall enrollment for grades K - 8 was 52% African American in Richland District Two. African-American percentages range from a low of 21.3% to a high of 87.7% in the district. The investigators have experience working in several other school districts in the area. All schools in Richland County School District Two were invited to participate and all district teachers who were willing completed the ADHD screener on all their students. If the number of positive screens remained feasible, all potential cases were invited to participate in the case ascertainment phase as well as a random sample of low-screen youth.

For both of the initial sites, South Carolina and Oklahoma, children were screened using teacher report of symptoms or parent report of ADHD diagnosis and treatment. All parents of children identified as potential ADHD cases were invited to participate in an interview following the screen, as well as a sample of children not identified with ADHD. For control cases, the sample was first stratified by gender and then cases were sampled proportional to the gender distribution of the ADHD high screens (3 boys to 1 girl). Case definitions used to invite children to the interview portion of the study were based on either parent report of an ADHD diagnosis and treatment, or on teacher report of six inattentive or hyperactive symptoms and impairment.

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