The prevalence of symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in students with intellectual disability and its relationship with mother’s compassion fatigue

Abstract

Due to the existence of some characteristics of students with intellectual disabilities (ID) and the non-applicability of some diagnostic criteria to the symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in these people, the diagnosis of ADHD in students with ID may not be considered or its prevalence may be estimated much lower than the actual rate. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of symptoms of ADHD in students with ID and its relationship with mother’s compassion fatigue. The present research method was descriptive-analytical. The research sample consisted of 105 students with intellectual disabilities. To collect data, child behavior checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) and compassion fatigue questionnaire (Abdollahzadeh Rafi et al., 2022) were used. The results showed that 58.1% of students with ID show signs of ADHD at the clinical level. Also, compassion fatigue was a positive relationship with the increase in the severity of symptoms of ADHD in students with ID (p<0.05). The high prevalence of ADHD symptoms in students with ID reminds us of the need to address this problem. Also, to reduce the symptoms of ADHD in students with ID, it is necessary to consider the compassion fatigue of their mothers.

Keywords

• attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
• children with special needs
• compassion fatigue
• intellectual disability