Abstract
Biological explanations have been increasingly used in scientific discourse to explain mental disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). At the same time, there are also criticisms of the arguments that this type of explanation is the only valid one. In this scenario, we can ask: how does this information reach the population? Our aim, therefore, is to describe how the scientific discourse on ADHD has been translated and presented by the Brazilian media to the population, based on the analysis of 81 recent journalistic articles of two important Brazilian newspapers: Folha de São Paulo and O Globo. We divided the results into three main themes: "the increase in the number of diagnoses and the medicalization of life", "drug treatment" and "the psychiatric clinic, criteria and diagnoses", which appeared recurrently in the reports analyzed. In the media, the hegemonic scientific discourse did not conquer a monopolized space (although it represents 65% of the articles analyzed), but divides it with the discourse of medicalization and critique of excess diagnosis and therapeutics.
Keywords:
attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity; written media; representations; qualitative research; Brazil
