A recent analysis reveals an 18% increase in ADHD diagnoses among young people in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2024, with a notable rise among girls and calls for better support systems in schools.
More children and teenagers in Rhineland-Palatinate are being newly diagnosed with ADHD, according to a DAK-Gesundheit analysis that points to a sharp rise in 2024. The insurer said initial diagnoses climbed 18% from the previous year, reaching an estimated 11,700 young people across the state. Boys still accounted for more diagnoses overall, with about 7,600 compared with roughly 4,000 girls, but the increase among girls was steeper, at 33% against 11% for boys.
The report also found that 6.4% of children and adolescents aged three to 17 in the state were receiving medical care for ADHD, which the insurer said equates to about 37,400 young people. The largest number of diagnoses was recorded among primary school children aged five to nine, and DAK said the rise was visible across all age groups.
Rainer Lange, DAK’s state chief in Rhineland-Palatinate, said children needed better co-ordination between the adults and services around them. He argued that schools in particular could play a major part because they reach nearly all children. Anke Wenzel, a paediatrician and deputy state chair of Germany’s children’s doctors’ association, said girls had probably been underdiagnosed for years and that ADHD should not be seen as a condition affecting only boys.
Christoph U. Correll, director of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychosomatics at Berlin’s Charité hospital, said growing pressure on children may be one reason more diagnoses are appearing. He said the pandemic may also have left delayed learning effects, while social media could be adding further strain. His comments come against a broader German backdrop in which ADHD diagnosis patterns have shifted over time: earlier research in the Journal of Attention Disorders found lifetime diagnoses among 3-to-17-year-olds fell to 4.4% in 2014-17 from a higher level in the early 2000s, while another study found parent-reported prevalence had been broadly stable in the intervening years.
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