Aims and Scope
What belongs in this journal
Journal of ADHD And Care publishes peer-reviewed research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and on the care that supports the people living with it. Its remit runs the length of the life course — childhood, adolescence, and adult life — and across the clinical, educational, occupational, and family settings where that care is given.
This page states the boundary the journal works to: the lines of inquiry it publishes, the judgments that decide an interdisciplinary submission, and the work that falls outside. It is written for authors deciding where to send a manuscript, and for readers deciding what this record can be expected to contain.
The test
A manuscript is in scope when it makes a substantive research question, analysis, method, interpretation, or contribution about attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or about the care that surrounds ADHD across the life course.
Both halves of that sentence carry weight. Research into mechanism, measurement, and development belongs here on its own terms, and so does research into the clinical, educational, occupational, and family work of supporting a person — provided the connection to ADHD is real rather than incidental.
The journal’s published record illustrates the remit. It does not set it: the boundary follows the journal’s title, and topics the archive has not yet reached remain fully in scope.
Within scope
Nine lines of inquiry describe the work the journal actively seeks. They overlap by design, and a strong manuscript often sits across several.
01
Mechanisms of attention, executive function, and reward
Cognitive, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental accounts of inhibitory control, working memory, temporal processing, delay aversion, and reward sensitivity.
02
Assessment and measurement
Instrument development and validation, psychometrics, observational protocols, performance-based testing, and ecological or digital measurement of everyday behavior.
03
Development across the life course
Trajectories, persistence and change, presentation and recognition in adolescence, adulthood, and later life, and the transitions between care settings.
04
Clinical care and treatment research
Pharmacological, psychological, behavioral, and combined care: how it is chosen, delivered, adhered to, and evaluated, including safety and long-term outcomes.
05
Education and learning support
School and university provision, assistive technology, accommodation, curriculum and classroom practice, and the preparation of the staff who deliver them.
06
Work, participation, and everyday function
Occupational performance, workplace adjustment, disability support, daily living, self-management, and decision-making in ordinary settings.
07
Families, caregivers, and community
Parenting and family systems, caregiver experience and support, peer and community relationships, and the services that reach people where they live.
08
Co-occurrence, heterogeneity, and difference
Sleep, mood, anxiety, learning, conduct-related and substance-related co-occurrence; sex and gender; culture, language, and context in how ADHD presents.
09
Services, access, and implementation
How assessment and care are organized, reached, financed, and sustained, and what happens to evidence when it meets a real service.
Where the decision takes judgment
ADHD research borrows from psychology, psychiatry, pediatrics, education, occupational science, neuroscience, and health services research. Most difficult scope decisions turn on four questions rather than on the discipline a manuscript comes from.
What makes ADHD central
Interdisciplinary work is welcome when the manuscript contributes something about ADHD: a question it asks, an analysis it carries out, a method it develops, or an interpretation it offers. Studying or recruiting people with ADHD does not by itself establish fit; the contribution, not the population, is what the journal reads.
Care research has to be ADHD-specific
Work on mental-health services, classrooms, workplaces, or families belongs here when it yields something substantive about ADHD or about ADHD-related care, in what it asks, how it analyzes, or what it concludes. General provision studies that happen to include people with ADHD do not become in scope by that inclusion alone.
Eligibility and evidence are separate questions
Scope and evidence are settled separately. Association, prediction, efficacy, and clinical-use claims each call for the design that can carry them, and a manuscript is read against the claims it actually makes.
Basic and methodological work counts
Laboratory, computational, psychometric, preclinical, theoretical, observational, review, and policy work are all in scope when they contribute something about ADHD or the care around it. Each is judged by the standards of its own kind, and a study earns its place through the strength of its question, its methods, and its reporting.
Outside scope
Three kinds of submission fall outside the boundary above. Authors are welcome to write to the editorial office before submitting if a manuscript sits near one of these lines.
- 01Work in which ADHD appears only as a keyword, a covariate, a passing reference, or a characteristic of the sample.
- 02General mental-health, education, or neuroscience research that makes no substantive contribution about ADHD or ADHD-related care.
- 03Material written as practice guidance, training collateral, or promotion for a product or service rather than as research.
A product or program evaluation with a substantive ADHD question remains in scope. Funding, sponsor involvement, data access, methods, and competing interests are assessed under the journal’s editorial policies.
Scope is one of several grounds on which manuscripts are decided; the complete criteria, and the requirements a manuscript must meet, are set out in the pages below.
Where to go next
- About the journalWhy the journal exists, whom it serves, and the responsibilities it carries.Read →
- Instructions for AuthorsManuscript requirements to review before preparing a submission.Read →
- Editorial PoliciesEthics, integrity, and the grounds on which manuscripts are decided.Read →
- Submit a manuscriptThe approved submission routes, and what each one is for.Open →