OBJECTIVES: To give a literature review and assess the health status utility and productivity of adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) focusing on measures with outstanding importance for health economic analysis. METHODS: PubMed was systematically reviewed for adult ADHD studies involving the EQ-5D and/or Work Productivity and Activity Impairment (WPAI) questionnaires. A cross sectional survey in an outpatient psychiatry centre was performed and the Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI-S) was used to categorize patients by severity. RESULTS: While several studies assessed the impact of ADHD in childhood only one (Patient 2011;4(4):247-57) dealt with EQ-5D in adult patients and none applied WPAI. In our survey, forty-four patients (males 79.5%) were involved with mean (SD) age of 30.0 (9.9) years and disease duration of 7.6 (6.6) years. Thirty-three (75%) were singles, 9 (20.5%) married (20.5%), 2 (4.5%) divorced and 9 (20.5%) had children. Highest educational level was primary, secondary school and university at 5 (11.4%), 22 (50.0%) and 17 (38.7%) cases, respectively. Twenty-nine (65.9%) were taking medication for ADHD, seven (15.9%) needed accompanying person when travelling for health care. Injury requiring medical care occurred at 6 (13.6%) patients, 4 related to ADHD by self-report. Usual activities, pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression were the most affected EQ-5D dimensions (moderate problem: 52.3%, 47.7%, 54.5%) and the EQ-5D score (mean 0.747, SD 0.280) was significantly lower than the age-matched population norm (p<0.05). Utility in mild (CGI-S=3) and moderate (CGI-S=4) health state was 0.799 and 0.706, respectively. Twenty-three (52.3%) patients were working, 17 (38.6%) were students and 4 (9.1%) unemployed. WPAI results were as follows, mean (SD): absenteeism 0.1 (0.3)%, presenteeism 33.0 (26.2)%, overall work impairment 16.9 (22.8)%, activity impairment 39.5 (28.7)%. CONCLUSIONS: Health status utility and productivity in adult ADHD is underexplored. Our study suggests that impaired everyday activities and preseenteism are considerable and deserve further research.