Paper short abstract:

In the absence of reliable ADHD prevalence rates, emerging data on psychostimulant drug sales and prescriptions have become a public and problematic issue in the Portuguese context. Here, problematic data play a social role in mapping the ambiguous epidemiology of this diagnosis.

Paper long abstract:

In Portugal, where psychiatric diagnosis has historically not been bound to a standardised, evidence-making role, the prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remains largely unknown. Given this gap in knowledge, ADHD clinicians have highlighted the complexity and variability of this diagnosis while relying on a combination of clinical experience and worldwide estimates to index it as the most prevalent disorder among school-age children and adolescents. With the emergence of psychoactive drug consumption data and reported high levels of psychostimulant prescriptions in this age group, however, the ambiguous epidemiology of ADHD has become a problematic issue in the media and a subject for public debate. Does this scenario reflect the clinical and diagnostic variability of ADHD, a problem of over-consumption and over-prescription of psychostimulant drugs, or a combination of factors? Inspired by the social studies of science and globalisation, and medical anthropology, this paper explores the social uses and roles of problematic data in the Portuguese context, where the epidemiology of ADHD occupies a seemingly ambiguous and uncharted territory.