"How does PCOS affect mental health, and what is the ADHD link?"

PCOS affects around 1 in 8 Australian women of reproductive age (Teede et al., 2024). The mental health impact is substantial and well documented, and the picture in the research has been getting more textured year by year. There are two parts worth understanding: the mental health symptoms most often documented in women with PCOS, and the emerging picture around overlap with ADHD. The second part is one of the more interesting emerging areas in this field, and it is worth being careful about how we describe it.

Written and reviewed by Natalia Cajide, Registered Psychologist (AHPRA PSY0002474316). 4 min read. Published 7 June 2026. Last reviewed 7 June 2026. Next review 7 June 2027.

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A note on terminology

In May 2026, an international consensus process led by Monash University officially renamed Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) (Teede et al., 2026, The Lancet). The new name reflects the condition's hormonal and metabolic dimensions, beyond the misleading focus on "cysts".

We use PCOS/PMOS together in this answer. The rollout into clinical practice, research databases, and patient resources will take roughly three years, and many people still search and speak about the condition under its previous name. Both names refer to the same condition.

What the research has documented

A 2017 combined study of research findings by Cooney and colleagues remains the most-cited synthesis on PCOS/PMOS and mood (Cooney et al., 2017). Across the available studies, women with PCOS/PMOS reported moderate or severe depressive symptoms at significantly higher rates than women without the condition, and anxiety followed the same pattern. The 2023 international PCOS/PMOS guideline, led by the Monash team and adopted in Australia, now mandates routine screening for depression and anxiety in women with the condition (Teede et al., 2024). The guideline also names body image concerns, disordered eating, and feminine identity questions as commonly under-recognised dimensions.

The body image piece is one I want to draw out, because it threads through so many of my conversations with clients. PCOS/PMOS produces changes in the body that the world still rewards the absence of: weight changes, hair changes, skin changes, acne. A combined study of research findings on body image in PCOS/PMOS, published in 2023, found that women with the condition reported significantly more body-image distress than women without (Davitadze et al., 2023). This is not vanity. It is the daily experience of living in a body that no longer matches the social script.

The ADHD picture

The PCOS/PMOS and ADHD relationship is genuinely emerging research, and a careful one to talk about, because the picture is still developing. The first thing to say is that the work here is about co-occurrence and symptom overlap, not causation. The original anchor study by Hergüner and colleagues, published in 2015, found that adult women with PCOS/PMOS scored higher on adult ADHD symptom scales than matched controls (Hergüner et al., 2015). A 2025 study of research findings by Osianlis and colleagues at Monash synthesised what is now known about ADHD and sex hormones in women, including the documented elevated rates of ADHD symptoms in women with PCOS/PMOS (Osianlis et al., 2025).

What is clinically more useful than any single prevalence figure is the symptom overlap itself. Executive dysfunction (difficulty with planning, working memory, sustained attention). Emotional dysregulation. Sleep and circadian disturbance. Disordered eating, including binge patterns. Body image distress. Each of these is independently documented in PCOS/PMOS and in adult women's ADHD. When the two conditions are present together, the experiential picture is layered. And because adult women's ADHD has historically been missed (typically diagnosed later than in boys, often after long detours through anxiety and depression treatment), one diagnosis frequently delays recognition of the other.

What I find most often, working with women who have both PCOS/PMOS and a recent ADHD diagnosis (or suspicion), is that the relief of finally having two names for what had been one confusing experience is real. The two conditions are not the same. They share territory. Naming the territory, and the distinct contribution of each, is often where the work becomes possible.

This content is general information only. It is not a substitute for individual psychological or medical advice. Reading this does not establish a therapeutic relationship with Equal Psychology or any of their clinicians.