Are congenital heart defects connected to more severe attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder?: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common cause of birth defect-related infant morbidity and mortality, affecting 1% of 40,000 births per year in the United States. On the other side, the etiology of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is multifactorial. Multiple studies have found that cardiac surgery patients have higher morbidity of having this disorder. Many studies have investigated the prevalence of ADHD in different subtypes of CHD, but few have focused on the severity of ADHD symptoms. Thus, we conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the severity of ADHD symptoms in CHD patients. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched from inception to March 6, 2023 without any restrictions. We included observational studies published in English language that evaluated burden of symptom of ADHD in CHD patients. Moreover, the standardized mean difference (SMD) for continuous outcomes with 95% confidence interval (CI) was pooled. P-values