Quality of life improvement in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder reduces family's strain: A structural equation model approach.
Ilaria Rocco, Maurizio Bonati, Barbara Corso and 1 others
PMID 33928651WHAT IT FOUND
Treatment did not significantly improve children's quality of life; only symptom severity did.
Parents' strain was driven mainly by how poorly their child was functioning, not the symptoms themselves. Focus on lifting the child's quality of life to help the family.
Key findings
01Children with more severe symptoms had a higher probability of receiving treatment, but this treatment did not significantly improve their quality of life.
02The child's quality of life mediated the effect of symptom severity on family strain, meaning parental stress was caused mainly by the child's reduced quality of life rather than the symptoms alone.
03Symptom severity produced the strongest direct negative effect on the child's quality of life.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study is observational and cannot prove causation. Treatment was a single dichotomous variable (received at least one type vs. none), combining pharmacological, psychological, occupational, speech, and other therapies, so the specific contribution of any single intervention could not be separated. Data from some participants were missing, though imputation methods were used. The sample distribution across countries was not proportional to the target population, limiting generalizability. Participants had ADHD symptoms but were not formally diagnosed, which may differ from a diagnosed clinical population.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was supported by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Framework.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treatments are ineffective based on this study. The analysis grouped all treatments together and showed that treatment did not directly improve quality of life, but this is an observational association, not a controlled trial of a specific intervention's efficacy.