13 October 2008

Dundee doctors to train Chinese health workers

Chinese health workers are set to become better at spotting attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children after funding was awarded to a University of Dundee expert to develop a training programme in China.

Dr David Coghill from the Centre for Child Health, at Dundee, has been awarded £250,000 to train professionals how to spot children with ADHD in China, in a project nicknamed BANANAS -Building A Network Across Nations for ADHD Services.

ADHD is a relatively unknown condition in China, despite experts believing that rates of suffering there are as high as in the UK, where at least 3 per cent of children are thought to suffer from it.

Relatively few Chinese children are currently identified and referred and whilst there are some centres of excellence, most clinicians are not trained or experienced in the formal assessment of ADHD. Dr Coghill’s programme will increase the skills of a range of health, educational and voluntary service providers.

The proposed project will focus on two very different settings Shanghi a densely populated and rapidly developing urban area and Changsha a rural province. Experts from Dundee will travel to China to help train people about the signs to look out for and how to diagnose ADHD.

Dr Coghill says, 'This is a fantastic opportunity to make a difference to the lives of many children. We will be training the first group of doctors, teachers and voluntary workers how to recognise and assess ADHD and then they will go on to teach the next group so over time the numbers of staff trained will be really very large.'

NOTES TO EDITOR

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is estimated to affect between 3 and 5% of school-aged children, is one of the most common neurobehavioural disorders of childhood and one of the most impairing. ADHD is characterised by developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, which give rise to serious impairments in academic performance and social adaptive and behavioural functioning, both inside and outside the home. Untreated children with ADHD have higher rates of accidents, are more likely to be excluded from school, poor relationships with parents, brothers and sisters and have often have difficulty making and keeping friends, They are more likely to get into trouble with the police and to smoke, drink and be involved with drugs. Treatment can reduce all of these difficulties.

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