TOPLINE:

Adding a 12-week structured physical exercise program to standard care was associated with alleviated symptoms and improved quality of life in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with standard care alone, a new study showed.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a parallel randomized controlled trial (RCT) in Sweden between 2021 and 2024 that included 63 patients aged 18-65 years (67% women) with a confirmed diagnosis of ADHD.
• Patients were randomly assigned 2:1 to the START exercise group (n = 43) or the treatment-as-usual group (n = 20). Thirteen patients from the exercise group and nine from the control group dropped out during the study or follow-up.
• The primary outcome was alleviation of self-reported ADHD symptoms at 12 weeks, as measured by the World Health Organization’s Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale Symptom Checklist (ASRS-v1.1).
• Secondary outcomes included clinical effectiveness, treatment satisfaction, insomnia, and health-related quality of life, measured using the Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) scale, Clinical Global Impression-Improvement (CGI-I) and Patient-rated Global Impression-Improvement (PGI-I) scales, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and EuroQol Visual Analog Scale (EQ VAS).

TAKEAWAY:

• The START intervention group had significantly greater alleviation of ADHD symptoms on the ASRS-v1.1 than the control group (mean difference, -6.98; P = .01), meeting the primary outcome.
• The exercise group also showed significantly greater clinical improvement than the control group on CGI-S scores (P < .001), as well as CGI-I (mean difference, 2.2) and PGI-I (mean difference, 1.8) scores (P < .001 for both).
• Health-related quality of life improvement, as measured on the EQ-VAS, was also greater in the exercise group vs the control group (mean change from baseline, 10.55 vs -2.45; P = .02); and they had greater alleviation of insomnia symptoms on the ISI (-2.9 vs 0.9; P = .005).
• No intervention-related adverse events were reported.

IN PRACTICE:

“This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first RCT of regular, structured physical exercise intervention for treatment of adult ADHD,” the investigators wrote.

“Integrating guided physical exercise into routine clinical practice may provide an accessible approach of improving both symptomatic and functional outcomes” for this patient population, they added.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Lena Axelsson Svedell, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden. It was published online on October 30 in Frontiers in Psychiatry.

LIMITATIONS: 

The study was limited by its small sample size, and the high dropout rate may have introduced selection bias. The single-center design in Sweden limited external validity and clinicians who assessed secondary outcomes were not fully blinded. Additionally, some participants received training in cognitive skills alongside the exercise intervention, introducing a potential confounding factor. 

DISCLOSURES:

The study was funded by grants from the Swedish state under the ALF agreement, the Research Committee in Region Örebro County, the Nyckelfonden Research Foundation, and the Fredrik and Ingrid Thurings Foundation in Sweden. The investigators reported having no relevant conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.