Comparison of emotion regulation, quality of life, and clinical characteristics of children and adolescents diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder with and without autism traits

In this study, the investigator aimed to show that children and adolescents diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with autism traits may represent a different group of ADHD cases in terms of emotion regulation skills, clinical features, quality of life, and functionality level compared to children and adolescents with ADHD who do not show this trait. Exclusion criteria were to have a neurological disease or severe chronic disease that may impair functionality or have at least one of the diagnoses of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), intellectual disability, schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and bipolar mood disorder. The ADHD group with autism traits consisted of 50 participants, and the ADHD group without autism traits had 64 participants. The investigator used the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children- Present and Lifetime version (K-SADS-PL) to screen psychopathology, parent-reported Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) to differentiate autism traits, and the Hollingshead Redlich scale to classify the socioeconomic-sociocultural level of the family. The investigator evaluated all subjects with child-reported Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI), Affective Reactivity Index (ARI), Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Affective Reactivity Index-Parent Report (ARI-P), Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL)-Proxy Report, Family Assessment Device (FAD), Weiss Functional Impairment Rating Scale–Parent Report (WFIRS-P) to evaluate emotion regulation skills, clinical features, quality of life, and functionality level. The main findings of the study are that the ADHD group with autism traits, compared to the group without autism traits, had a significantly higher level of irritability and the comorbidity of separation anxiety and a significantly worse level of the parent-reported current language-speech skills, and significantly lower level of psychosocial quality of life and social functionality.