Social cognition and emotion regulation in adolescents with ADHD

Abstract

Objective: In our study, it’s aimed to evaluate the emotion recognition and regulation skills of adolescents with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to compare the results to healthy control cases. Methods: To our study, 63 ADHD diagnosed and 32 control cases with similar sociodemographic characteristics to patient group aged 11-18 years were included. ‘Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School Age Children- Present and Lifetime Version' was applied to all cases in order to psychiatric evaluation. In all cases Child Behavior Checklist, Turgay DSM-IV-Based Child and Adolescent Behavior Disorders Screening and Rating Scale, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and to evaluate social cognitive properties Faces Test, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, The Unexpected Outcomes Test and Comprehension Test are applied. Results: The scores of tests evaluating emotion recognition and regulation abilities in adolescents with ADHD were lower than control group. Conclusion: The better understanding of the problems in emotion recognition and regulation abilities of the adolescents with ADHD may be helpful in determining the required interventions (social skill training etc.) in this respect.