The relationship between internet addiction seen in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and their self-esteem

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorder seen in childhood and adolescence. These patients often have low levels of self-esteem depending on the clinical problems they live. In addition, internet addiction is highly comorbid in adolescents diagnosed with ADHD. We aimed to examine the relationship between the internet addiction in these adolescents and their self-esteem levels. The study group included 32 adolescents (aged between 12 and 18) diagnosed with ADHD while the control group included 22 adolescents (aged between 12 and 18) who never met any psychiatric diagnosis before including ADHD . ADHD subscale of Kiddie-Sads-Present and Lifetime Version, the Internet Addiction Scale, the Conners Parenting Rating Scale - Renewed Long Form and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were used for the assessment. We found low self-esteem levels in adolescents with ADHD when compared to healthy controls. The research group is divided into to two as the ones diagnosed with internet addiction and the ones who did not get the diagnosis and we could not find any difference depending on the self-esteem levels between these two groups. Otherwise, the severity of internet addiction was not significantly different between the adolescents diagnosed with ADHD and internet addiction, and controls. This might be the result of high levels of internet use that was an unexpected result in the control group. Also we could not find any significant correlation between the severity of internet addiction and self-esteem levels in the group diagnosed with both ADHD and internet addiction. Contrary to this, the severity of internet addiction increased as the levels of self-esteem decreased in the control group and the adolescents with ADHD who did not get the diagnosis of internet addiction. Key Word: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, self perfection, self- esteem, internet addiction