Parental mental health during preconception years in association with offspring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a systematic review protocol

IntroductionAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuropsychiatric condition prevalent in both children and adults. With growing awareness of the importance of the preconception period in health, it is essential to understand whether preconception parental mental health and related factors are related to onset of offspring ADHD. This protocol presents the methodology for undertaking a systematic review to investigate associations between parental mental health and/or psychotropic use during the preconception years and offspring ADHD.Methods and analysisPeer-reviewed literature will be identified by searching relevant electronic databases including Medline complete, Embase, PsycINFO and CINAHL; reference lists of eligible articles will be hand searched and grey literature considered. Eligible study designs include population-based and/or clinically based cohort or case–control studies. The primary exposure and outcome of interest is parental history of mental health conditions in the preconception period and offspring ADHD, respectively (ie, according to semistructured interviews/confirmed diagnosis by a relevant health professional or screening instruments). Critical appraisal will be undertaken. A descriptive synthesis will be presented including characteristics of the included studies, critical appraisal scores and a summary of main findings (eg, presented in tables, text and figures). A meta-analysis will be conducted, if possible, and statistical techniques will be employed if heterogeneity is detected.Ethics and disseminationEthical permissions are not required for this systematic review since the study will only use published data. Findings from this systematic review will be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal/presented at national and international conferences relevant to the field.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42023460379.