The functioning and behaviour of biological parents of children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, attending the outpatient department at Weskoppies Hospital, Pretoria

South African Journal of Psychiatry

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The functioning and behaviour of biological parents of children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, attending the outpatient department at Weskoppies Hospital, Pretoria
 
Creator Sundarlall, Ravindra Van der Westhuizen, Debbie Fletcher, Lizelle
 
Subject Medicine; Psychiatry; Public health; Child psychiatry; ADHD medicine; child psychiatry; ADHD Child Psychiatry
Description Background: ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) is gradually being acknowledged as a functionally impairing disorder across the lifespan, underscored by heritability. Nonetheless, lack of ADHD (adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) data from South Africa is alarming which could be due to either the unawareness of ADHD symptoms or underutilization of available screening measures. Undiagnosed ADHD may influence family- and working lives unpleasantly. Parenting a child with ADHD may intensify parental stress through functional impairment notwithstanding the diagnosis of ADHD.Methods: Eighty-one biological parents of children diagnosed with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder were screened using self-reporting measurements. ADHD self-report scale (ASRS-V 1.1) identified either positive or negative subgroups; the Weiss functional impairment rating scale (WFIR-S) for functional impairment and the Jerome driving questionnaire (JDQ) for risk-taking behaviour specifically driving. Results: Of the 39 (48%) parents who experienced impairment in all seven areas of functioning, 23 (59%) screened negative for ADHD, while 16 (41%) screened positive. A significant association was found between parents who screened either positive or negative for ADHD and functional impairment across five of the seven individual categories namely family, work, self-concept, life-skills and social functioning.Conclusion: This study emphasized the high incidence of functional impairment in parents of ADHD children. Although a substantial number of parents screened negative for ADHD, they still reported impairment in functioning; probably due to undiagnosed ADHD with comorbid psychiatric disorders, and/or parental stress due to the complex behaviour of the child. Parents of children diagnosed with ADHD should be screened for functional impairment followed by referral for psychiatric assessment and parent management training to achieve better clinical outcomes.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-05-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajpsychiatry.v22i1.836
 
Source South African Journal of Psychiatry; Vol 22, No 1 (2016); 6 pages 2078-6786 1608-9685
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/836/640 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/836/642 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/836/617 https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/836/615
 
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Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Ravindra Sundarlall, Debbie Van der Westhuizen, Lizelle Fletcher https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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