ADHD Among College Students and the Stakeholders being Affected

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ADHD Among College Students
Introduction
ADHD is a major challenge facing college students. From a historical perspective, research on this issue started in the 1990s and has continued to increase in recent years. Before the 1970s, ADHD was perceived as a condition that children outgrew as they matured. However, longitudinal results in the mid-to-late-1990s showed that the symptoms of approximately half to two-thirds of children with ADHD persisted through adolescence and adulthood (Green and Rabiner 559). Many studies conducted recently on college students reveal that ADHD affects the academic outcomes and other socio-economic aspects of the students’ lives. Therefore, stakeholders are increasingly urged to find immediate solutions regarding managing and treating ADHD among college students. This essay will discuss five major stakeholders affected by this problem: students, parents/families, schools/teachers, caregivers, and policymakers. The focus is to review the perspectives of the various stakeholders and establish areas of agreement and disagreement regarding the importance of the problem and the approaches for management and treatment.
Stakeholders
Students
The primary stakeholders in this issue are the students with ADHD. The rationale is that they are the ones who suffer the negative consequences of ADHD and should be the ones helping other stakeholders in developing the necessary treatment and management approaches. The extent of the effects of ADHD on college students has been extensively studied by scholars aiming to determine both the nature of the problem and potential solutions. Primary research by Mak et al. (2022, 1078) revealed that approximately 15.5% of students surveyed had ADHD, and comorbidities were found in 58.4% of this population. The significance of these statistics is that they show that a large number of college students have ADHD, which necessitates the development and implementation of solutions. Studies show that among the key symptoms of ADHD are hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsive interferences that lower the quality of social, academic, and even occupational functioning (Lagacé-Leblanc et al. 131). As the primary stakeholders, students are often at the forefront of research and practice directed at seeking interventions.
The question of how students perceive ADHD can be answered by focusing on the self-reported survey results across the ADHD studies. Most importantly, the effects of ADHD can be understood from the students’ perspective through personal experience. In college, the focus may usually be on the effects of ADHD on academic outcomes and the mechanisms by which ADHD affects academic performance. The functional impairments include difficulties regulating attention, emotions, motivations, time, working memory, and organization/planning (Lagacé-Leblanc et al. 134-136). The result of these impairments is that students cannot pay sustained attention to their studies, which directly reflects in their grades. College students also express facing other challenges in school, especially where support infrastructure is lacking. In this case, these stakeholders and their experiences illustrate that the educational system has neglected their special needs. Therefore, special arrangements and accommodations must be made for students with ADHD to have equal academic, social, and occupational life opportunities.
Understanding ADHD from the perspectives of college students remains the best approach to the problem. Self-reported issues and experiences help scholars and practitioners develop relevant hypotheses and experiment with various approaches. Some sources often offer simplistic solutions for students that can help alleviate the effects of ADHD. Some of these solutions are merely daily routines that can help students in their studies and social life. For example, sleeping, joining a club, remaining proactive, using a calendar, and using ADHD prescription medicines (Rooney). However, the ADHD problem can be fully resolved with such simplistic solutions. Holistic approaches to ADHD would be more appropriate.
Parents/Families
Parents and families represent another category of active advocates for the problem of ADHD among college students. From a stasis theory perspective, parental involvement can be expressed using the questions of quality, where the nature and seriousness of the issue can be examined. However, questions of fact and conjecture explain the origin of the issue and parental involvement, where scholarly and empirical studies shed adequate light on the issue. The first aspect to discuss is the importance of family of students with ADHD. In this case, the students often rely on primary caregivers for recognition of symptoms, decision-making, searching for care services, and implementation of treatment (Paidipati et al. 90). The family members are often integrated into such activities as care planning, especially when caregivers adopt a family-centered approach to care. The family members are, therefore, considered part of the caregiving teams. Parents spend more time with their children than their caregivers, which means they are in a position to monitor progress and help implement some of the treatments recommended by caregivers.
In stasis theory, the questions of quality focus on such aspects as the seriousness of the problem. In this case, ADHD among college students is a major challenge for parents, as established by (Schaefer et al. 636). This is because parents undergo stress and frustration, especially when transitioning their children to college. The parents also desire to remain continuously involved in the children’s self-management of ADHD. However, several barriers often hinder their involvement, which causes them to fear the consequences for the children and their functioning in the college. The...