Effectiveness of a psychoeducational group intervention developed by primary care nurses on symptom control of pediatric patients with ADHD. ADHD parent study

Abstract

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder with an estimated prevalence of 5%. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a psychoeducational intervention performed by primary care nurses on parents of children with ADHD. We recruited participants composed of parents and children between 6 and 12 years with ADHD. We conducted a two-branch randomized control trial. The intervention programme consisted of nine group sessions (5-12 parents) with a duration of 10 months. The primary outcomes were the attention tasks measured with the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA) and the ADHD symptomatology. Forty-eight children were included in the study. The average age of the parents was 42.6 years (standard deviation, SD: 6.3), and of the children 10.1 years (SD: 1.9), 81.3% were boys. TOVA and the symptoms after the intervention showed no statistically changes in both groups. The intervention group showed more knowledge of ADHD (17.3 vs 11.5, p = 0.008) and knowledge of drugs (6.1 vs. 4.5, p = 0.005) than the control group after the intervention. A psychoeducational intervention performed by primary care nurses on parents of children with ADHD did not show any modification in the attention tasks, and only changed the knowledge of ADHD of the parents that received the intervention.

Keywords

• Psychoeducational intervention
• nurses
• primary care
• children
• pediatric
• attention deficit hyperactivity disorder