The Relationship Between Social Anxiety Disorder and ADHD in Adolescents and Adults: A Systematic Review
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: This review aimed to systematically gather empirical data on the link between social anxiety disorder and ADHD in both clinical and non-clinical populations among adolescents and adults. METHOD: Literature searches were conducted in PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, resulting in 1,739 articles. After screening, 41 articles were included. Results were summarized using a narrative approach. RESULTS: The prevalence of ADHD in adolescents and adults with SAD ranged from 1.1% to 72.3%, while the prevalence of SAD in those with ADHD ranged from 0.04% to 49.5%. Studies indicate that individuals with both SAD and ADHD exhibit greater impairments. All studies were judged to be of weak quality, except for two studies which were rated moderate quality. DISCUSSION: Individuals with SAD should be screened for ADHD and vice versa, to identify this common comorbidity earlier. Further research is needed to better understand the prevalence of comorbid ADHD and SAD in adolescents.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Social anxiety affects up to half of adults with ADHD.
“Social anxiety, affecting up to half of adults with ADHD [204], frequently co-occurs and exacerbates avoidance behaviors, reinforcing isolation and impairing the formation of supportive networks.”
From ADHD in Adulthood: Clinical Presentation, Comorbidities, and Treatment Perspectives (2025) · cites this paper as [204]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 88 · Cited by 12
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- American Psychiatric Association. (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV (3rd ed.).
- Hesser H. Andersson G. (2015). Introduktion till metaanalys och systematiska översikter. (1st ed.). Studentlitteratur. [Swedish]
- Kachin K. E. Pincus A. L. (2001). An interpersonal problem approach to the division of social phobia subtypes. Behavior Therapy, 32, 479– 501. 10.1177/0963721409359280 · DOI
- Tillfors M. Mörtberg E. Van Zalk N. (2021). Atypisk social ångest. In Mörtberg E. Tillfors M. (Eds.), Social ångest från teori till behandling (1th ed.) (pp. 53–68). Studentlitteratur. [Swedish]
- Authors
- Jakobsson Støre, S., Van Zalk, N., Granander Schwartz, W., Nilsson, V., & Tillfors, M.
- Affiliations
- Karlstad University, Sweden
- Imperial College London, UK
- Psychological Clinic for Parent and Child Health Care, Region Värmland, Karlstad, Sweden
- Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Region Värmland, Karlstad, Sweden
- Karlstad University (SE)
- Venue
- Journal of Attention Disorders
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2024-04-23
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 1299-1319
- ISSN
- 1087-0547 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-1246
- PMC
- PMC11168018
- OpenAlex
- W4395048977
- Cited by
- 12
- References
- 88
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 3
- FWCI
- 0.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Attention Disorders (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- KTH Publication Database DiVA (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Keywords
- social anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, comorbidities, adolescents, adults, prevalence, functional disability, screening
- MeSH terms
- Phobia, Social, Adolescent, Adult, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Humans, Comorbidity, Prevalence
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
