ADHD, mental health and wellbeing research
I research how people and the environments around them can flourish
For over a decade I’ve researched mental health and wellbeing. More recently, my work has focused on ADHD and neurodivergence, and the conditions that help neurodivergent people thrive. What ties it all together is my approach. I’m interested in how the systems we live and work within — our workplaces, our communities, our environments — shape our experiences and health and wellbeing.
I'm an ADHDer myself, diagnosed later in life, and I’ve lived the academic burnout I now research and help others avoid. So this work is personal, applied in my practice, and scholarly. Across over 70 peer-reviewed papers, nine book chapters and an edited clinical textbook, my research spans public health, psychology, mental health and wellbeing, complementary and integrative medicine, and planetary health. My work applies psychological theory and systems thinking to understand the determinants of health and improve health and wellbeing across the life course.
ADHD and neurodivergence research
I’ve been researching the experiences of adults and university students with ADHD since 2023. The thread running through this work is that flourishing with ADHD isn’t about willpower, or strategy, or trying harder. It’s about conditions — the quality of the environments we’re in.
That reframing shifts the question from “What's wrong with this person?” to “What needs to change in this person's environment?”. It’s grounded in ecological systems theory and a growing body of evidence showing that outcomes for ADHDers and neurodivergent people are shaped not only by what’s happening inside us, but by how safe, clear, supportive and flexible the world around us is.
We don’t have accurate prevalence data for Australia; however, it’s estimated that up to 6% of Australian adults have ADHD. The real prevalence is likely higher, and we don’t know enough about their experiences or how to create environments that provide psychosocial safety and promote their wellbeing — especially for women, who are mostly diagnosed late. My research is aiming to change that.
Here are the projects I’m collaborating on.
Hiding or thriving? The lived experiences and coping strategies of women and gender diverse people with ADHD
Growing numbers of women are being diagnosed with ADHD as adults, often after years of managing their symptoms without support or a diagnosis. Women with ADHD face heightened risks compared to women without it — including higher rates of anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and chronic pain. Despite this, very little is known about how they actually cope day to day, and almost no research has looked at the Australian experience. Because most women are diagnosed later in life, many have developed their own self-directed strategies to manage their symptoms, including non-pharmaceutical approaches. This project sought to understand the lived experiences of women and gender diverse individuals with ADHD across regional, rural, remote, and metropolitan Australia, and to explore the coping strategies they use, the barriers and enablers to accessing support, and how life events shape their needs over time. By understanding their experiences, the project aimed to identify strategies that help women and gender diverse individuals thrive rather than hide their challenges — informing better public health policy and guidance, more effective support, and future research that could benefit the wider ADHD community.
Citation: Meredith, O., Verdon, S., Frawley, J., McIntyre, E., Osborne, J., Roberts, J., & Smith, D. (2024). Hiding or thriving? The lived experiences and coping strategies of women with ADHD [Early Career Researcher grant, funded project]. Charles Sturt University.
Uni-que Minds: Supporting our neurodivergent students at UTS
Neurodivergent students — including those who are autistic or have ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, or dysgraphia — are a substantial part of the university population, yet they remain far less likely to complete a degree than their peers and often face significant impacts on their mental health and wellbeing during their study. Neurodivergence can also bring real strengths in academic skills like research, writing, analytical thinking, focus, and understanding complex ideas. This project sought to understand the experiences of neurodivergent students at the University of Technology Sydney, in order to address the challenges experienced by neurodivergent students within higher education. The project aimed to develop effective support strategies for neurodivergent students to thrive at university — improving their wellbeing, sense of belonging, and likelihood of completing their studies — while strengthening UTS’s wider commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Citation: Frawley, J., Debono, D., Grove, R., McIntyre, E., Power, E., Manton, J., Hor, S., Frey, E., Wheeler, G., Meredith, O. S.,
Penny, E., & Purcell, A. (2024). Uni-que Minds: Supporting our neurodivergent students at UTS [Learning and Teaching Scholarship, funded project]. Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney.
“Discovering me”: How women diagnosed with ADHD later in life experience identity change through ADHD coaching
Many women are now being diagnosed with ADHD in mid-life or later, after spending years being misunderstood and unsupported. A late diagnosis can profoundly reshape how a woman understands herself, prompting her to reinterpret her past and rethink her sense of identity — an experience that can bring relief and validation, but also grief or self-doubt. ADHD coaching has emerged as one form of support for navigating this transition; however, little is known about how women experience identity change through coaching, particularly in the Australian context. This project will explore the lived experiences of Australian women late-diagnosed (40 years +) with ADHD who have engaged in ADHD coaching to understand how these women experience identity change. Viewed through a neurodiversity-informed and intersectional lens, the project aims to surface insights that can inform more tailored and supportive coaching approaches, and better support the wellbeing of women navigating a late ADHD diagnosis.
Citation:Holmes, N.-M., & McIntyre, E. (2026). “Discovering me”: How Australian women diagnosed with ADHD later in life experience identity change through ADHD coaching [Honours thesis in progress]. School of Psychology, Charles Sturt University.
Workplace environment, wellbeing and burnout in academics with ADHD: An Australian study
Universities are complex, demanding workplace environments. For academics with ADHD, heavy workloads, tight deadlines, competition for funding, and publishing targets can be especially difficult to navigate. Challenges with organisation, time management, and attention, combined with stigma and a lack of understanding or workplace accommodations, may leave academics with ADHD particularly vulnerable to burnout and poor wellbeing. Despite ADHD affecting an estimated 2–6% of Australian adults, research examining how the academic workplace specifically influences the wellbeing and burnout of academics with ADHD is lacking. This project investigated how different aspects of the workplace environment — including job demands, leadership and relationships, work-life balance, and workplace culture — influence burnout and wellbeing among academics with ADHD at Australian universities, and what workplace adjustments and supports they find helpful. By identifying the workplace factors that protect or undermine wellbeing, the project aimed to inform the creation of neuro-inclusive academic environments and practical strategies that support mental health and professional success.
Citation: Opie, L., & McIntyre, E. (2024). Understanding how workplace environment affects wellbeing and burnout in academics diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: An Australian study [Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) honours thesis, Charles Sturt University].
Mental health and wellbeing
This is the foundation of my research, and the core of my expertise. Over more than a decade I’ve studied what protects and undermines mental health — in clinical practice and across the everyday decisions, environments and systems that shape health and wellbeing. My work here includes:
How people make decisions about self-care, mental health, and health services use
Impacts of environmental change and mental health
The use of complementary and integrative medicine for mental health and wellbeing
Clinical decision-making and communication in health care
The thread running through this is that optimal wellbeing isn’t only an individual achievement. It’s shaped by the determinants of health — systems and contexts people live and work in. This belief connects my mental health research to my work in neurodivergence and systems.
Systems thinking: the person and the system
My research considers health at the systems level. Whether I’m looking at why an academic with ADHD burns out, how a community stays resilient through environmental change, or how attention is shaped by the environment around a person, I consider the same question: how do the systems we’re part of shape our health and wellbeing, and how do we change them?
This is why I think about ADHD in terms of situational variability — the way our functioning shifts depending on the interaction between us, our environment, and the moment we’re in. What can look like inconsistency from the outside is often a predictable response to changing conditions. It’s also why I draw on the resilience research that treats resilience not as a fixed personal trait, but as something context-specific that emerges from the ongoing, reciprocal relationship between a person and the systems around them.
That same systems lens runs through my wider research:
Planetary health — the health impacts of environmental change and contamination, climate change and health, and building resilience for environmental change
Sustainable healthcare — health systems that adapt to and mitigate environmental damage
Resilience — how people, communities and systems adapt and keep functioning under pressure
It’s also what makes my neurodivergence research useful to organisations. I don’t just look at the person who’s struggling. I look at the conditions causing the struggle.