The investigation of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) concept has renewed interest in recent years. Apart from previous studies linking SCT items to ADHD, current research now shows further evidence for the relationship between SCT items and impairment in several domains. Despite it is not a clinical entity, SCT items are often seen in clinical child and adolescent psychiatric populations and, thus, further investigation of these symptoms is clearly needed both in clinical and in community samples.

Our aim was to investigate the relations between SCT items and psychiatric symptoms, as well as psychosocial and academic functioning in a large general population sample of adolescents.

Fifteen-year old adolescents from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 (n = 9432) completed a postal questionnaire on their health and well-being with a participation rate of 80%. The questionnaire included the Youth Self Report (YSR) which has the following SCT items: I feel confused or in a fog, I daydream a lot, and, I don’t have much energy, as well as items constructing the subscales depressed/anxious, withdrawn, somatic complains, social problems, thought problems, attention problems, rule-breaking behavior, and aggressive behavior.

Around 8% of adolescents rated themselves above the 90% cut-off in the sum score of SCT items. They also reported more symptoms in all YSR subscales, lower grade marks in academic field, less friends, and lower life satisfaction than adolescents scoring below the 90% cut-off.

SCT may relate to various psychiatric problems and reduced psychosocial well-being.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.