Attachment styles in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the impact of parental psychopathology on attachment

The aims of this study were to examine the attachment styles in adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the impact of parental psychopatology on attachment. The study included 30 adolescents with ADHD and their parents, 30 adolescents and their parents were both healthy, all the children included were between 12-17 years old. All adolescents were screened by using Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children- Present and Life-time Version (K-SADS-PL). The Adolescent Relationship Scales Questionnaire (A-RSQ) was administered to determine attachments styles of adolescents. All parents were screened by using Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I Clinic Version) and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders (SCID-II) to determine psychopathology. Parents were filled Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) and Wender-Utah Rating Scale (WURS) for the purpose of evaluating their present and ongoing status of severity of the symptoms of ADHD. In this study no statiscally difference was found between patients and healthy controls as looking at the average points of A-RSQ for all attachment styles. But in patients group; the highest average points were found in dismissing attachment subtype and in healthy group in secure attachment subtype. In the ADHD group 21 (%35) of the parents and 9 (15%) of parents of healthy adolescents were diagnosed with at least one psychopathology. The difference was statistically significant (p=0.012). We found that the adolescent whose parents had any psychopathology scored significantly higher on dismissing attachment style than adolescent who had healthy parents. We also determined that the adolescent with adult ADHD parents scored significantly higher on dismissing attachment style. Although our results have suggested that adolescent with ADHD have more dismissing attachment style and also adolescent whose parents had any psychopathology may have elevated risk for developing insecure attachment style, these findings are needed to confirm with studies in large samples. Key words: ADHD, attachment, psychopathology, adolescent, parent.