Summary Passive sensing research in psychiatry often yields only small effects due to reliability and heterogeneity issues caused by underpowered, unrepresentative samples. We argue that patient-driven data donation, leveraging widespread health self-tracking, offers an innovative complementary method for collecting larger, more diverse data-sets and improving the validity of inferences from passive measures.
Background Emerging evidence suggests that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be associated with increased likelihood of experiencing interpersonal harm, including from intimate partners.Aims This study aims to test the long-term associations between ADHD traits in childhood and experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) up to midlife (age 51 years).Method Data were from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a nationally representative longitudinal study of people born during 1970. ADHD traits were assessed at age 10 years. Lifetime experience of five types of IPV was measured at age 51 years (harassment, economic abuse, physical violence, threats/coercive control, sexual violence). Regression models were used to test associations between childhood ADHD traits and midlife IPV, adjusting for gender, ethnicity and childhood social class.Results Adjusted models showed that ADHD traits in childhood were associated with higher risk of experiencing any form of IPV, a greater number of different IPV experiences and all individual subtypes of IPV by age 51 years. Post-estimation showed that around one in seven men and one in four women without high ADHD traits experience some form of IPV by midlife. In people with high ADHD traits (4.40%), these estimates increase to approximately one in five men and one in three women.Conclusions Higher levels of childhood ADHD traits are associated with an increased risk of experiencing IPV by middle age. These findings highlight that ADHD may be associated with increased vulnerability to interpersonal harm in relationships. Identifying people with ADHD at greatest risk, as well as addressing the needs of people with ADHD within IPV prevention and response systems is important for reducing harm and addressing inequalities faced by people with ADHD over the life course.
Summary A significant minority of women experience perinatal depressive or anxiety disorders, perhaps because mothers now attempt in isolation a role humans evolved to perform collectively. We argue that this evolutionary mismatch may be one contributing factor, complementing their multifactorial, biopsychosocial aetiology. We outline clinical, service and policy implications.
