Evaluation of quality of life in attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the quality of life of children and adolescents with ADHD( Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) differed from those of healthy children and adolescents, to determine the factors affecting this difference, to determine whether the social skills levels of ADHD children and adolescents differed from healthy children and adolescents, to investigate its contribution. METHOD: The study group consisted of 6-18 years old 64 children and adolescent who were attended to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic of Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Medicine, between 01.10.2015- 18.12.2015 and diagnosed ADHD according to DSM-V diagnostic criteria a result of clinical interviews and psychometric examinations and who agreed to participate in the study and their parents and teachers. On the other hand control group consisted of 59 healty children and adolescents that were paired by age and sex with study group. All parents were asked to complete pediatric Qualtiy Of Life İnventory-Parent Form ( PedsQOL), Turgay DSM-IV based Child and Adolescent Behavior Disorders Screening and Rating Scale - parent form, Social Responsiveness Scale. Children and adolescent filled out PedsQoL-child form, Children's Depression Inventory, Screen for Child Anxiety and Related Disorders. The teachers completed Turgay DSM-IV based Child and Adolescent Behavior Disorders Screening and Rating Scale- teacher form and the semi-structured interview form was filled by the researcher to obtain sociodemographic data. The obtained data were evaluated with SPSS Windows 13.0 package program. RESULTS: Of the 64 children and adolescents with ADHD who were included in the study, 84.4% were male, 15.6% were female, and the mean age was 105 ± 28.6 months. 60.9% of the children and adolescents with ADHD met the combined presentations, 31.3% had the predominantly inattentive presentations and 7.8% met the diagnostic criteria with hyperactivity / impulsiveness predominant. presentations. It has been found that children with ADHD have low quality of life in all areas of their lives, according to their PedsQOL- parent form scores. According to the PedsQOL-Chil and adolescent form, the children of ADHD have a low quality of life in all areas except physical health. While 50% of children and adolescents with ADHD had impaired social skills, this rate was 10.2% in the control group ( p<0.001). No significant difference was found when comparing the distribution of social skills and ADHD subtypes in the patient group. Comorbid psychiatric disorder was found in 68.8% of cases with ADHD with impaired social skills. It was found that all subscale scores of PedsQOL-Chil and adolescent form children with ADHD with impaired social skills were lower than those of children wıth ADHD with unimpairment social skills. In the control group, it was found that the level of social skills disability was only low in the quality of life school function subscale score. It was determined that there was a negative correlation between the social response scale scores and all the subscale scores of the quality of life that the parents completed. Prevalence of pre-school education was found to be a predictor of social skills in children and adolescents with ADHD. DISCUSSION: In conclusion, ADHD has led to serious social, academic and psychological deficits in all stages of child and adolescent development. In the multidimensional monitoring of the disease, it is reported that the psychosocial dimension as well as the clinical parameters are increasingly important, and the qualifications and deficiencies at this dimension can be explained with the best quality of life. In the light of this information, it can be concluded that pre-school diagnosis, parental psychoeducation, early school intervention, and early social skills training in ADHD are the enhancing effects of quality of life in ADHD children in later ages.