Prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children presenting with foreign body ingestion.

Background: Foreign body ingestion is a common condition in children. We aimed to compare the incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in children that ingested foreign bodies with healthy children.

Methods: The study group consisted of 3- to 17-year-old pediatric patients admitted to the emergency department after foreign body ingestion, and the control group was formed with children having similar demographic and cultural characteristics that presented to the same department for non-traumatic causes. After initial intervention and stabilization, we administered the Conners' Parent Rating Scales-Revised (CPRS-R) to both groups.

Results: The study group consisted of 53 patients with a mean age of 7.83 ± 4.36 and the control group comprised 47 children with a mean age of 7.72 ± 3.48 years. There were no statistically significant differences between the study and control groups in terms of age, gender, and parental education levels (p > 0.05 for each). The foreign objects most ingested by children were coins (32.1%), followed by needles (15.1%) and beads (9.4%), and all the patients recovered without complications and were discharged. All the CPRS-R subscale scores were significantly higher in the study group than in the control group (p < 0.001). The parental education levels of the study group were not significantly correlated with DSM-IV hyperactivity-impulsivity and DSM-IV total.

Conclusion: We found that the incidence of ADHD symptoms may be high in children referred to emergency services after accidentally ingesting foreign bodies.