By: Anita Thapar, Heidi Phillips, Jessica Eccles
In the Channel 4 documentary The Great ADHD Myth broadcast on 18 August 2026, psychiatrist and journalist Max Pemberton questioned whether attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a “genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”1 The documentary has contributed misinformation and confusion to the already fraught discourse around ADHD. A wealth of robust research supports the view that ADHD is a well established, extensively evidenced neurodevelopmental condition.2 The disorder is associated with serious adverse outcomes, including substance misuse, suicide, and premature mortality.2 Substantial evidence from randomised controlled trials shows that ADHD responds to treatment.34 This evidence was omitted from the documentary, which is concerning given that the care health professionals provide might be informed by it. The programme failed to clarify fully how an ADHD diagnosis is made. Diagnosis requires clinically significant impairment, symptoms that are pervasive across settings, and evidence of onset in childhood.4 ADHD is included in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases and in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance.5 The suggestion made in the documentary was that ADHD is commonly misdiagnosed or “over-diagnosed,” but there is clear evidence of underdiagnosis in the UK.6 Misdiagnosis may occur in individual people after low quality assessments. Lack of capacity for assessment and treatment of ADHD within the NHS has contributed to …
