Factores cognitivos y de personalidad individuales y familiares en adolescentes con TDAH

Resum

In recent years we have seen an upsurge in research on Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity/Disorder (ADHD). More and more studies are being carried out to analyze the characteristics of the disorder. However, there is a scarcity of literature addressing the cognitive and personality factors found in children with the diagnosis and their parents. Therefore, the objective of this research is to respond to this scientific shortfall by delivering information on the cognitive and personality profiles of adolescents with ADHD and their fathers and mothers. The specific goals were: a) to describe and analyze the cognitive characteristics associated with ADHD in adolescence, b) to study and describe the personality profile of adolescents with ADHD and to analyze the expression of these factors in their parents, and c) to compare these cognitive and personality factors with a non-clinical population sample. For our study, we selected 597 participants, divided into the following categories: 127 adolescents with ADHD, 185 adolescents belonging to the control group (CG), 173 parents of adolescents with ADHD and 112 parents of adolescents belonging to the CG. We measured the cognitive factors (Vocabulary, Matrices and IQ scores) using the Spanish version of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT). For the personality factors, we used the Spanish adaptation of the 16PF-APQ personality questionnaire for adolescents, and its version for adults: 16PF-5. For the statistical analysis, we used the SPSS statistical package 25.0. The results indicated, on the one hand, that adolescents with ADHD, compared to the CG, in terms of cognitive factors, obtained significantly higher scores in Matrices and IQ; and they reached higher scores in dominance, liveliness, tension, and toughness, and lower in agreeableness, attention to rules, self-sufficiency, perfectionism, and self-control, with respect to the personality factors. On the other hand, parents of adolescents with ADHD, compared to those of the non-clinical population, achieved higher scores in independence and lower scores in perfectionism and emotional stability. In addition, when comparing the personality tests of parents and their adolescent children, we found that adolescents obtained higher scores in image manipulation, emotional stability, dominance and privacy. In contrast, parents exhibited higher scores on agreeableness, reasoning, sensitivity, apprehension, perfectionism, extraversion, anxiety, and self-control. Lastly, dominance was shown to be a personality factor shared by both the children with the disorder and their parents. Our study has practical implications in psychoeducational assessment and intervention for adolescent with ADHD as well as for their parents. More extensive research on the cognitive and personality variables in ADHD, taking into account the interaction between both variables and the influence of the family factor on its manifestations and course is required.