Reciprocal Developmental Relations Between ADHD and Anxiety in Adolescence: A Within-Person Longitudinal Analysis of Commonly Co-Occurring Symptoms.

Objective: Significant anxiety often occurs in the presence of ADHD symptoms; however, the reasons are not well understood. We aimed to establish whether the relations between ADHD symptons and anxiety are bidirectional or unidirectional. METHOD: Weexamined the developmental relations between ADHD and anxiety symptoms across adolescence (ages 13, 15, and 17) in a community-ascertained, normative longitudinal sample of 1,483 youth (52% male). We used an autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals (ALT-SR) to examine within-person developmental relations between ADHD and anxiety symptoms to determine whether it is ADHD symptoms that lead to anxiety symptoms and/or the reverse. RESULTS: Results suggested that there are reciprocal within-person developmental relations between ADHD and anxiety symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the recommendation that targeting ADHD symptoms can be fruitful for addressing anxiety symptoms; however, they suggest that targeting anxiety symptoms may also benefit ADHD symptoms. Results also underline the importance of careful assessment for underlying ADHD symptoms among adolescents presenting with anxiety.Funding from the Jacobs Foundation (Grant 2010-888) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grants 100013_116829 & 100014_132124) is gratefully acknowledged